










ClassJPZ.3 
Book H_ 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 








HIS LETTERS 


By JULIEN GORDON. 

His Letters. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

In these brilliant and passionate letters there may be read a 
revelation of love which will move the imagination and touch the 
heart of every reader. 

Mrs. Clyde. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 

“Brilliant, entertaining, and convincing. Mrs. Cruger has 
achieved in this novel her most distinct success .” — Philadelphia 
Public Ledger. 

“ ‘ Mrs. Clyde ’ is worth reading. It is a strong novel of the 
material school, vigorously worded, clear in its pictures of persons 
and scenes, liberal in epigram, and clever in generalization.” — 
New York World. 

A Puritan Pagan. 

i2mo. Cloth, $1.00. 

“ This beautiful novel will, without doubt, add to the repute 
of the writer, who chooses to be known as Julien Gordon. . . . 
The ethical purpose of the author is kept fully in evidence through 
a series of intensely interesting situations .” — Boston Beacon. 


D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 







THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAY. 10 1901 

Copyright entry 

0 V 

CLASS^xXXc. N». 

Sb OSa 

COPY 8 . 


Copyright, igoi, 

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 


A ll rights reserved. 



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Copyrig;ht, 1893^ by Cassell Publishing Company. 


HIS LETTERS 


CHAPTER I. 

HERE had been a crowd about her 



1 painting all of the day, we were told at 
the door. But when we entered the gallery 
from the wet, darkening street, there were 
but a few stragglers left, loitering languidly, 
not as if they had a care for the pictures, 
but because they were afraid to venture 
into a cold, gusty twilight. By and by 
even these threw away or rolled up their 
catalogues, lowered their veils and hoisted 
up their petticoats, or turned up their collars 
and their trousers, as their sex might dic- 
tate, and made for the great banging baize 
door. So Thornton and I were left alone. 

He had passed the picture once or twice 
with his rapid, cold glance, but, when he had 
the field all to himself, he came back to it 


2 


H/S LETTERS 


with a certain eager restlessness that did not 
escape my notice. One was apt to notice 
what Thornton did. What is it about some 
people that so arrests, so excites our curi- 
osity ? It is a riddle, sphinxlike, unreadable, 
unreliable. We may say of this or that 
man or woman that we love or hate them, 
approve or disapprove ; we may praise or 
censure them, extol or vilify, there is just 
one thing that we cannot do — ignore them. 
They hold us ; be it to irritate or to charm, 
it matters not. We say of such an one : 
he or she is a person, an individual, a real- 
ity ; occupying space in a world of shadows. 
We breathe them ; whether they be mephitic 
or wholesome may depend upon our lungs, 
but at any rate they have furnished us with 
an atmosphere. It environs us, we absorb 
it, and it becomes a part of us. 

Why do I say all this ? I was thinking 
of poor Thornton. No one that I have ever 
met had more of this curious, inexpressible 
impelling power, force, call it what you will. 

I can see him now with his pale and tragic 
face; his eyes that seemed to pierce the 
souls of others, while they kept so well 


HIS LETTERS 


3 


their own secrets; his tall, straight figure, 
his elegant, aristocratic hands ; his set lips, 
with their expression which could be so 
sternly harsh, and again melt suddenly into 
a smile, whose sensitive beauty warmed the 
heart. 

As he looked at this picture which, in an 
hour, had made the artist famous, I looked 
at him. I often did so, furtively, as men 
rarely look at each other. There was some- 
thing in him that fascinated. He had come 
to the city where I dwelt, the great city 
of our Eastern civilization, alone, without 
wealth, with few friends, and he had thrown 
his glove across its cruel face defiantly, and 
he had conquered it. Of course he had 
been more or less well equipped ; he was 
well-born, well-mannered, had taken high 
honors at his university — was, in fine, a 
gentleman. Yet how often all this is not 
enough ! Later, terrible troubles had come 
upon him, troubles of which he never spoke, 
and he had for many years lived like a re- 
cluse, except when his voice thundered at 
the bar or from the tribune. 

I looked down at the catalogue, where I 


4 


HIS LETTERS 


held it open with my thumb, and read the 
name of the picture before which we had 
paused, “Two Burdens.” A desolate brown 
field, flat, stretching away to a dark red 
horizon, where a dying sun lay on a pile of 
clouds. Wind-swept, sere. In the fore- 
ground a few scraggy bushes, wan, fruitless. 
Across the melancholy desolation two hu- 
man figures hurried. One was a humble, 
trembling, crouching creature, an old man 
in tattered garments, bowed under a great 
load which lay across his shoulders ; totter- 
ing, weary, yet with a kindly, nay, happy 
light in two uplooking eyes. One whom 
Napoleon, meeting, would have said, ''Je 
mdcarte toujours pour qui porte tin far- 
deauP 

The other figure was that of a woman ; 
a woman tall, queenly, lovely, dressed in 
queenly apparel. There were jewels upon 
the slender shoe, from which her garments 
were swept backward by a cruel blast, and 
jewels on her fingers and at her throat. 
She was wrapped in a rich cloak, or rather 
coat, cut in a strange fashion, of that dusky 
rose sheen of which Tintoretto seems alone 


HIS LETTERS 


5 


to have mastered the yellowing tones, but 
which the brush here had caught and 
riveted. Her head was borne erect and 
haughtily. One felt that those proud 
shoulders had never stooped to bear a 
weight ; but in her face ! Never was deeper 
anguish painted, never profounder agony 
portrayed. She seemed like one hastening 
to meet half-way some fateful presage, or 
speeding to escape some torturing doom. 
There was a wistful yearning on her fore- 
head as of one who, seeking life, had found 
but death. It was a striking picture, start- 
ling ; and yet one felt to the many it might 
bring no meaning. 

Who is the artist, did you say ? ” asked 
Thornton, turning to me eagerly, after 
a long and speechless halt before the 
canvas, on which a brilliant light was 
cast. 

Why,” I said, astonished, “ have you not 
heard, do you not know?” And then I 
named her. 

Ah, is it she ?” 

“ Yes ; are you one of her friends ?” 

No,” he answered smilingly; ''bats and 


6 


HIS LETTERS 


owls don’t play with birds of such glowing 
plumage.” 

“ But surely you have seen her ? ” 

I have not.” 

“ Mrs. Moncrief is everywhere.” 

I am nowhere. When the evening 
comes I go back with other night hawks, 
you know, into my woods. The light hurts 
my eyes.” 

“ And you think this remarkable ? ’* 

I do.” 

“ She ought to know it.” 

“ Pshaw ! ” 

“ I shall tell her.” 

‘‘ She will only laugh.” 

“Why should she who lives among 
pygmies laugh at the praise of a giant ? ” 

“ If she lives among pygmies, I presume 
they are to her taste.” 

“ Can she who tells this story be a doll ? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders. “ Who knows? 
There are women who have souls only in 
the tips of their fingers,” he said lightly. 

“What, wield such a brush and have no 
soul ? You blaspheme ! ” 

“ I am an old blasphemer, Milburn.” 


HIS LETTERS 


7 


“Yet we hard sinners stopped longer 
here, I find, than that fair-faced girl who 
stared a moment, yawned, and moved on, 
apparently much bored.” 

“ I saw that girl ; she was craning for a 
lover, who didn’t come.” 

“ He was not worth expecting, then.” 

“ My dear Milburn, you don’t know the 
sex.” 

“ Well, were I a girl I wouldn’t look at 
painted things when I expected my lover. 
Love would suffice.” 

“ Do you know the color of it ?” 

“ Do you ? ” 

“ Why do you ask ?” 

“ I ask because it’s interesting.” 

“ What, its color ? ” 

“No, you.” 

“I?” 

“ Yes, you in conjunction with love.” 

“ Oh, I am defunct ! ” 

“ Since when ? ” 

“ Since — years ; dead as a dog.” 

“ Dead ! and that splendid outburst of 
eloquence, no later than yesterday, that car- 
ried hundreds away breathless on its wing ?” 


8 


HIS LETTERS 


'' That’s mere froth. That isn’t living. 
Dead men have voices too sometimes. By 
Jove! but I have missed my train!” He 
looked at the slowly vibrating pendulum of 
the clock that hung aloft. 

“ Dine with me at the club, or at my 
rooms, as you like.” 

'‘Your rooms, then.” 

By and by, over our cigars, “ Milburn,” 
he cried suddenly, “ she’s a genius ! ” 

“ Who’s a genius ? ” 

“The lady who painted the picture, Mrs. 
Moncrief.” 

“ Why don’t you go and tell her so, then ? 
Women don’t smite men for boldness.” 

He gave a short, dry laugh, “ I am timid.” 

“ Timid ! Afraid of stage-fright, eh ? ” 
It was my turn to laugh now at the man 
who had enthralled thousands with his 
voice. 

“ Exactly that.” He shook the ashes 
from his forefinger. 

“ She’s used to men, the fair Heloise ; 
she’ll put you at your ease ; she isn’t timid. 
But, if tradition tells the truth, it says that 
women have had cause to be afraid of you.” 


ms LETTERS 


9 


“ Tradition lies ! ” 

Humph.” 

Then somehow we fell to talking of 
other things. 

And now that he whom I was proud to 
call my friend has passed into the world of 
shadows, and that she who inspired in him 
the mad devotion few women ever know, 
has also slipped into the silence that sur- 
rounds the spheres, methinks it is not all 
unfitting that these letters — simply the 
record of a man’s loving — should be given 
to the world. They are but fragments — for 
some were lost, I ween, or willfully de- 
stroyed — which through the strangest cir- 
cumstance fell to my keeping. In publish- 
ing them to-day I break no vow, am 
disloyal to no promise ; I wrong no living 
soul, neither do 1 betray the dead. He 
who penned them was a man of genius. 
But love, such love as his, is too absorbing 
even for genius to portray, save haltingly 
Hence I make no claim to the exhibition 
of genius — in these letters. 

But spontaneity of expression true love 


lO HIS LETTERS 

must always find. If these prove that love 
still lives with all its exaltation and its 
fervor in an age accused of materialism and 
of hardness, ’tis well. Of love, however, 
there are no proofs. He who would prove 
religion falters ; he can but pray. He who 
seeks decisive proofs of love is either knave 
or fool. 

Such as they are, I give them. To me 
they were delivered in two packets, tied 
with a silken string all worn and soiled. 
There were no words upon them, except, 
marked in a woman’s hand, ‘‘ Before ” and 
'‘After.” The first were written, therefore, 
e’er they met, the late ones afterward. Be- 
tween them I have written a few words. 
They are of her he worshiped. I knew her 
well, or thought I did. I may have been 
mistaken. 

Letter First, 

My Dear Mrs. Moncrief : 

Although I have not had the honor of an 
introduction, my name may not be entirely 
unknown to you. 

I venture to send you a collection of 


HIS LETTERS 


II 


ephemera! papers published some years ago 
by a friend of mine. They have, in my 
estimation, some merit, and their subject, 
“ Modern Art,” may commend them to your 
favor. 

Should you not care to read the book, 
may it serve, at least, to attest the respect, 
appreciation, and admiration with which 
your genius has inspired me. I have seen 
your picture ! Need I say more? 

Sincerely yours, 

Hubert Thornton. 

Letter Second, 

My Dear Mrs. Moncrief : 

I had not thought that you would deign 
to answer my note, although I hoped you 
would accept the little work on art. I can- 
not tell you how deeply your courtesy has 
touched me. “ Proud of a letter from 
me?” Heavens! I wish you could read 
in my heart the humility your words 
awaken. 

Faithfully your servant, 

Hubert Thornton. 


12 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Third, 


My Dear Madame : 

/ you? That is impossible. You 
little know how much it would be in your 
power to do for me. In a sad life your 
genius penetrates like a ray of sunshine, to 
warm and invigorate. 

But I say too much ; pardon me ! 

Faithfully yours, 

H. T. 


Letter Fourth. 


There seems to be no doubt that the let- 
ter which I sent at five o’clock yesterday 
was delivered. What has become of it? 
What also has become of your second letter 
that I should have gotten yesterday ? Bear 
with me for a moment while I tell you 
about the last two days. On Friday, I was 
not fortunate enough to get a line. That did 
not hinder me from sending you a letter that 
day. Why should it ? I did not write to 
you because I really believed that you could 
care to receive my letters, but because it 
gave me such great pleasure to write them. 
On Saturday morning, I got a kind, a most 


ms LETTERS 


13 


kind message in the letter whose envelope 
I inclosed to you two hours ago. From 
something that you graciously said I hoped 
that I might have still another line from 
you yesterday ; but that again did not with- 
hold me from sending you a long letter at 
five o’clock. From you, since eight o’clock 
Saturday morning, I have heard nothing, 
until I got the note which has distressed me 
so to-day. You tell me that you have 
failed. Of course you have failed. I 
know well enough what that means. It 
means that out of sheer compassion you 
did try to think a little kindly of me, but 
that you have found you could not. I am 
not surprised. I deserve nothing at your 
hands. I would give no woman a moment’s 
weariness, least of all, one whom . . . but 
my tongue is palsied. 

Letter Fifth, 

I cannot understand your letter. I re- 
ceived but one letter from you yesterday. 
It was in the inclosed envelope, and came 
by post very early in the morning. I hoped 
for another, but got not a word until this 


14 


HIS LETTERS 


moment. I wrote to you, however, and 
that there might be no possible miscarriage 
I took myself and placed it in the hands of 
the messenger. Where is that letter? It 
would simply kill me to have that letter go 
astray. 

I can never trust that messenger again. 
The torrent shall find other channels. You 
should have nothing to do with one so 
cursed of fortune. As I told you, I have 
no luck. You ought to have a supersti- 
tious horror of me, but you have not, have 
you ? That is because you are an angel. 

H. T. 

Letter Sixth, 

So the letter is lost. It seems to me that 
I could have hurled the earth from its axis 
to get back that letter from a strangers 
hand ; the thought that any eye but one 
should look on it is pure agony. I cannot 
rewrite it ; I might as well try to recall the 
blood my heart lost yesterday. But my 
heart is still strenuous, still loyal, though I 
thought it would break this morning. 

But I can write another one. What 


HIS LETTERS 


IS 

smote me as with a bludgeon was your 
thought that I could get a line from you, 
and let a day pass without answering it, or 
thanking you for it. Why, what should 
hinder me? I should have to be dead. 
Don’t imagine that I wish to place you un- 
der any similar obligation. I would not 
have you write a word that you did not 
wish to write, that you could help writing. 
What would such a word be worth to me ? 
I will not even tell you again when your 
silence makes my day a blank. Ah, I am 
grateful for small favors. 

Do you think I do not thirst to see you ? 
What chains at my door and chains at yours 
could bar me out ? 

I have an atonement to make. I must 
not give it the coup de jar^iac, Jarnac cut 
the cords of his opponent’s knees, and of 
course the poor wretch fell prostrate, and 
all in vain he waved his sword. 

But write I must. When once I thought 
that I might not, my head fell forward on 
the table and I sobbed. 

Is it true that you are not well ? O 
God, it is not possible to receive so much 


HIS LETTERS 


i6 

of sweet and bitter in one stroke ! But I 
will be good, so quiet, so very calm ; and 
you will still let me write to you now and 
then. I will never tease and worry you. 
I will not say a word about myself, or even 
about you. I will talk only of art or of 
books. Surely it cannot vex you to hear 
me talk of these. 

Ah, as I told you once, a touch of some 
hands suffices to freeze or to inflame ; to lift 
to heaven or plunge in the abyss. Do not 
be careless with such touches. If I had 
your power to appall, or torture, or ravish 
with a word, I would be generous. If the 
letter which you so sweetly sent me yester- 
day went by post, it may reach me to- 
morrow morning. Let me hang upon that 
hope to-night. You saw that when I sent 
you the envelope I kept the precious 
letter that it held. It was the only one I 
had left. I could not part with it quite yet. 

I cannot write more — I have been made 
so timid by your first letter this morning ; 
you made it so clear to me that it would be 
much wiser if I wrote no more. Good- 
night ! Good-night ! 


ms LETTERS 


17 


Letter Seventh, 

. . . Let me tell you what you have done 
for me. Of late, since you have let me 
think of you a little, since I have not felt so 
utterly daunted and dismayed, a wondrous 
alchemy seems to have been working in my 
brain; you are always there. You exert 
the strangest influence. I know that my 
thoughts are more sinewy and more fecund, 
that my vision is clearer ; but most marvel- 
ous of all is the change that has come over 
the face of the earth. It is eternal spring 
with me ; I see all things through a haze 
of sympathy and gratitude. I cannot 
glance at anyone, or speak, or write with- 
out an overflow of kindness from my heart. 
Oh, others get some of the drops from the 
fountain which your gentle wand made 
gush out from the rock ; and think what 
this means to me ! I used to be very 
irritable ; my nerves seemed always on the 
rack. Now, only one thing can disturb me. 
If by chance a small annoyance or petty 
impulse come to me, I smite them aside : 
“Not now! The house is full, the queen 


1 8 HIS LETTERS 

is here.” Does this seem to you but rav- 
ing? I suppose so, for you have needed 
no such purification, no such stimulus ; 
and, if you did, it would not be in me that 
you would seek it. 

So you are learning to fence, madame. 
Marguerite, too, was a mistress of the ra- 
pier. I am not to be scared so easily. Do 
you imagine you can hide your sex under 
the costume of a page? Don’t you know 
that you are the very quintessence of femi- 
ninity, that your whole being throbs with 
that eternal womanly about which Goethe 
used to speak ? Don’t you know that is 
why you can’t help drawing hearts after 
you tangled in amorous nets ? ” 

I had a lovely dream last night ; I 
dreamed that I found again, in the folds of 
a small note, some violets. But this time 
their scent I could not recognize. It 
startled, perplexed, excited me. “ Is it pos- 
sible,” I said, that these flowers can have 
touched a lady’s lips ; that what makes me 
so giddy is the lingering perfume of her 
breath?” You see what idle fancies come 
to one in the still night. At all events, 


HIS LETTERS 


19 


these violets have also ceased to have a 
separate existence ; and I believe the 
thoughts they are transformed to cannot 
entirely discredit the sweetness of their 
origin. 

You ask me why I despise . I have 

no personal grievance, but I have known him 
do such mean things to men who were too 
weak to defend themselves. He is always 
squat like a toad, close at F.’s ear. But 
there is no lack of mean men in the world, 
and this is no reason why one should think 
of him at all ; were it not that he has a 
great deal of scholarship in certain direc- 
tions. And he is one of the few men out- 
side of professors’ chairs who can discuss 
intelligently Spinozism, Hegelism, the Cat- 
egories ” of Kant, and so on. What arouses 
contempt is to see a man, commanding 
such weapons, apply them constantly to 
sordid and petty ends. It is as if a 
tramp had sneaked into the arsenal of 
heaven. 

Good-by ! Ah that I might add another 
word just here. 


H. T. 


20 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Eighth, 

I held my hand from writing, yesterday, 
because I was trying to heed a certain 
injunction : “ Promise you will never send 
me one line unless I bid you.” I had to 
disobey it once, on Tuesday, for there were 
things that belonged to you ; things that 
had been already said, but missed you. I 
had firmly resolved, however, never to dis- 
obey again, though I did hope that in the 
spring, when you had gone to the warm 
country where such as you should always 
dwell, you would lift the veto, and permit 
me to send to you my fleet, sad mes- 
sengers. But now, in this morning’s letter, 
it half seems to me that you have lifted 
it. You ask me questions. How shall I 
answer them if my hands are tied ? If I 
am wrong you shall rebuke me softly, and 
I will be mute. 

Ah ! those dainty volumes which you 
sent me with my name inscribed, and your 
lovely, lovely letter breathing forgiveness ; 
and yet the gentlest of reproofs in every 
line. Yes, and there was something else — 


HIS LETTERS 


21 


that tiny ribbon of pale blue silk that 
fastened the little parcel. I said, “Was it 
not her fingers that fashioned the little 
knot?” I hope it was; don’t tell me it 
was not ; for I have made a collar of it and 
have it now around my neck. A silken 
chain is it? Yes, but if it were forged of 
iron, as a slave’s collar ought to be, it could 
not grip me tighter. 

It is also sweet to me to think that the 
scrap of your handwriting on these fly 
leaves I am privileged to keep. But I 
shall keep much more. Do you think that 
my memory, which can store up such life- 
less trash as dates, will ever surrender one 
of your kindly words ? 

Last night I heard some people praising 
you. My heart warmed toward them, and 
yet I felt a certain jealousy. Oh, peerless 
one, what is this pain I feel when they but 
say your name ? 

Do I like Camors? Do I like Alci- 
biades ? Do I like Crichton ? Chastelard ? 
Do I like any of these figures in history 
or fiction ? — which, of course, is the truest 
history — that curse boys by infection and 


22 


HIS LETTERS 


make so often their lives a ruin ? Of 
course I like them, because some natures 
have an affinity for poisons and seem to 
tolerate what to others would prove fatal. 
But unhappily, in the packed thoroughfares 
and ferocious struggle of to-day, a man can 
only aim at excellence in one thing, and 
fortunate is he if he reaches it. The most 
that one can hope for is to convert one’s 
self into a useful machine. A man, in the 
old sense, one cannot be ; that is the pity 
of it and the tragedy. Men used to 
conquer their destiny ; now they submit 
to it. 

The wonder about Camors is that a hum* 
drum bourgeois like Feuillet should have 
conceived him. But Compiegne accounts 
for that. 

Bret Harte ? Oh, yes ; I like him well 
enough. But great Heavens! you must not 
talk about '‘revering” anybody. It is for a 
goddess, for the woman of whom one says, 
“ O dea certe ! ” that such an expression is 
reserved, and I doubt if even a goddess 
would quite like the word. I am sure that 
Aphrodite would have curled her lip at it. 


HIS LETTERS 


23 


Letter Ninth, 

If I lived forever — and it seems to me 
that you might give me what another, no 
sweeter than you, gave Tithonus, the gift 
of immortality — I could not tell you how I 
love you for driving up to my door to- 
night. Ah, how right my instinct was 
when I spoke of Marguerite de Valois, 
whom I used to dream of for years. She 
would have done what you did. And do 
you know, I was at home at that moment. 
I had been notified by telegram that a lot 
of men were coming to see me — me, in the 
mood that I was in. I heard the sound of 
wheels, and told a servant for God’s sake 
to make it plain that I was out, and would 
not come home till midnight. Think of it ! 
you were close to me, and I was kissing 
your letter at that moment. That letter 
came when I was dining. There was a 
man with me. It agitated me greatly. I 
needed ten minutes before I could answer 
the sweetest message that could come to 
any man upon this earth. I had not ex- 
pected it ; I was thunderstruck. I thought. 


24 


HIS LETTERS 


“ She believes me capable of wounding 
her again ! Was not once enough ? And 
it is therefore useless, for the moment, at 
all events, to try to touch her heart. By 
and by, perhaps, she may better understand 
whether she has misjudged me ; and then 
she has too much gentleness not to be 
sorry for hurting me to-day.” 

But what right had I to feel hurt ? Any 
hurt would be too good for me. What did 
my repentance amount to if I could not 
bear punishment ? 

But the idea that you imagined I mis- 
took you, that I was talking to you as one 
might have talked to any handsome or silly 
woman — ’twas that which made me feel a 
sort of despair. “ Can it be possible,” I 
said, “ that she, whose every word, every 
suggestion, every reticence I have been 
poring over all night, can believe that I care 
for her only for her fair face? Behind how 
many fair faces flashes such a soul as yours? 
and what an indignity to me, although 
my past may have deserved it. Should I 
wince the less for that — that you should 
hold me capable of thinking of you in the 


HIS LETTERS 


25 


light way that men may think of other 
women — ah ! you don’t know the difference 
between little passions and a great one. 
Neither did I know it until- now. You 
don’t see that the one annihilates even the 
memory of others ; and that a man can no 
more think of anything but noble things 
than, translated to paradise, he could look 
back upon the follies that had sent him to 
purgatory. 

Ah I I was blessing you because I could 
dream again ; because the sight of the deep 
sky or a far-off strain of music could agair 
set my spirit soaring, as it did in the golden 
days. And then, just then, came your letter, 
in which you taxed, or seemed to tax me, 
with speaking of you in the same breath 
with a dreadful woman. Well, no matter. 
Of this we will speak no more. 

It is just because I am no saint that I am 
grateful to you for lifting me above myself. 
It may be — so strangely is a man’s dual 
nature mixed — that you could not do this 
unless you had a lovely face ; but sure, but 
doubly sure I am that, you could never do 
it unless you had a lovely soul. 


26 


HIS LETTERS 


It is late. Let me send this quickly, lest 
it be too late to come to your hand to-night ; 
and let me write again to-morrow, for I only 
live in you.- 

I will answer you fully about Camors. 
There is much to say that I left unsaid. 
Good-night ! Good-night ! 

You have been to my door. I would that 
I might die to-night. 

Letter Tenth, 

It is four o’clock in the morning. I can- 
not sleep. I have been lying with my eyes 
shut, looking at you. I have turned my 
face due southeast, in the direction where 
you are sleeping. I have murmured your 
name, and I have tried with a great effort 
to force my spirit through the walls of brick 
and stone, that it might look down upon 
you sleeping, and breathe upon your cheek. 
It must be possible to do this. We are no 
more children of the sun than we are crea- 
tures of electricity, and the electric spark 
needs no wire to run upon ; the viewless air 
is wire enough. They will find it some day 
— that means of communion beyond the 


HIS LETTERS 


27 


barriers of sense. I have not found it yet, 
or how could you have been so near to me 
last night, and my heart not have burst with 
the knowledge? You have divined the se- 
cret of my life. I have been from childhood 
haunted, possessed with the passionate de- 
sire to forget myself, to lose myself in the 
thought of another. My life has been one 
ardent, desperate, and at last hopeless quest 
of something I could never find ; but when 
love comes you know him. There is a seal 
upon his forehead, and in his voice there is 
a music that enthralls the body and the 
soul. Ah, when love comes, death has no 
terrors. What can death do to one that 
laughs back at him and says, “ Smite ! for I 
have lived ! ” 

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power ; 

But what has been has been, and I have had my hour. 

My God ! when I think of Wednesday 
night I want to die out of sheer ecstasy at 
your incomparable goodness. Oh, had you 
come in you would have found me breath- 
less, prostrate on the floor ; and never 
would I have risen until you had set one of 
your slender feet upon my neck. 


28 


HIS LETTERS 


Later , — What does my secret matter ? 
Have I guessed yours? Ah, tell me what 
it is. Don’t tantalize me by such questions 
if you never mean to answer them. 

Do you know why I cannot trust myself 
to allude to certain words that you have 
uttered in your last letters? I scarcely 
dare to whisper them to my own heart. I 
never do whisper them save in the dark. 
Do you think that for one tear of yours I 
would not give the reddest drops that gush 
out of my heart? I can no more forget 
them than I can forget my own identity. 
I shall carry them with me to the grave ; 
and I would disdain a heaven to which I 
might not bear them with me. Oh, I have 
wished of late that I too believed in a per- 
sonal God, that I might pray to him to 
bless you for your immeasurable sweetness 
to me. You never can imagine what you 
have done for me. You didn’t understand 
what I meant when I said that you could 
do a hundred times more for me than I for 
you. You had already begun to do it, and 
now the work is fully done. 

How beautiful your letters are ! It is 


HIS LETTERS 


29 


their exquisite unconsciousness which is so 
fetching, so irresistible. You write like 
that great lady of whom De Quincey talks, 
who, without knowing the meaning of the 
word rhetoric, wrote the lovely English 
tongue in a way to make Addison seem 
ponderous and stiff. 

You ask me about C. He was not at all 
a man to my taste. He never could get 
very far above ground. The ideas were 
very commonplace that he boomed forth 
with a big voice. But he could feel in- 
tensely, and in that respect, at all events, he 
was every inch a man. I happened to be 

dining at Mrs. s house when C. was 

brought in and first introduced to her. I 
glanced at them now and then. She had a 
fixed look ; one saw that she was interested. 
That fixed look, we know what came of 
it ; but at least in that par tie a deux there 
was no cheating. The cards were on the 
table, the stakes were equal. It was not 
a caprice against a life. She played the 
game out to the end, and although the 
waters have gone over her, I say, or rather 
T said, that in one respect she was a finer 
3 


30 HIS LETTERS 

creature than P., who slew a man from 
pure ddsoeuvrement, as lightly, until the 
very last, as thoughtlessly as she might 
have thrust aside a dog. That was my 
first thought, and if it made me very ireful, 
it was because I felt certain that wherein 
P. was lovable she must be just like 
you. And you approved of her! You, 
then, would do such things, I thought. 
Now I have more light. 

I shivered at one sentence in your letter. 
I will not tell you now what it was. 

You have set me to thinking about 
Camors, and about the strangeness of the 
fact that in that story the woman should 
be so much stronger and more virile, 
yes, and braver than the man I And then 
I remembered that there lived once in 
Rome a lady who was the prototype of her 
that loved Camors. You are familiar, no 
doubt, with the fact that Arria is a counter- 
part of Feuillet’s heroine. 

You say you like my letters ; I am 
ashamed of them. I fain would keep your 
respect. It is because you are all ruth and 
gentleness that you say you like them. Only 


HIS LETTERS 


31 


de Musset’s hand was fit to touch the page 
that your deep eyes should gaze upon. If I 
had that touch of his I would brush you as 
with the wing of a humming-bird, and you 
should smile and know not why. But he is 
dead, and we that study him do but like 
other babblers — hurt where we would 
soothe, and harm where we would heal. 
Good-by. 

I have not heard from you to-day, and I 
am worried and depressed. But it would 
quite kill me if you were to write in charity. 

Letter Eleventh, 

I have just read your letter, your letters. 
Ah, you are too good to me ! I hesitated to 
open the envelope. I turned it over in my 
fingers. "‘What will she say to me?” I 
thought. It would be so easy for her to 
kill me with one word. But no,” I said, 
she is too gentle to hold me blameworthy 
for what I uttered in such a whirlwind of 
excitement as I wonder that any man can 
bear and live.” One does not — you, at least, 
would not — resent the outcries of a man in 
a high fever. You would not rebuke him. 


32 


HIS LETTERS 


You would say, Poor man, he raves,” and 
glide away. But yet, I thought, even in 
delirium a man may innocently say some- 
thing that jars upon the fiber of an ear in- 
finitely more delicate than ours. 

I read the letters. The first was balm to 
me. Ah, there is no woman in the world 
who can be so placable as you. I think 
you would not hurt a fly that with an in- 
stinct for security perched upon your slen- 
der finger. 

But the second — the second — I felt in an 
instant that some chord had been struck 
wrongly — which chord ? I have not found 
it yet, but I will find it. 

You told me things that I did not under- 
stand your telling me, about the feelings of 
other men. What have I to do with their 
feelings ? Do you think mine like theirs ? 
Why, there was a faint suggestion of the 
very stroke that pierced when I got your 
little note yesterday, in the afternoon. I 
knew very well why many men would be 
irresistibly attracted. I have eyes. I am 
not blind. But I have something that they, 
or some of them, at least, have not. It was 


HIS LETTERS 


33 


th'rough a pathway which spoke not to the 
passions but to the soul that you had made 
a willing thrall of me. Do you think that 
the men who are merely conquered by your 
physical attractiveness, however compulsive 
it may be, are translated as I am ; that they 
are made better, oh, so much better, by the 
thought that they can talk to you ; that they 
find dawning for them again that strange 
light that never was on sea or land ? Don’t 
you see that the others love you for them- 
selves, and that I am not thinking of my- 
self at all ? Do you think men would die 
for mere desire ? Oh, no ; it is only worship 
that men die for. 

Don’t you know there is one unerring 
method of distinguishing between the men 
who care only for the lovely shell which is 
your body, and leave neglected and unprized 
the sweet mysterious story which the shell 
tells of the ocean whence it came and 
whither it must go ? 

Does it follow, because you have the 
figure of Diana, and a fair face behind 
which lurks a divine vitality, that all men — 
all— must shut their eyes to that without 


34 


HIS LETTERS 


which you were only the most seductive of 
all odalisques ? The touchstone is so ob- 
vious that a child might see it. Indeed, I 
think the soft eyes of a child might see it 
first. 

Why, there is all the difference in the 
world between the hunger for possession 
and the thirst to be possessed ! To have 
one’s mind, one’s heart, one’s soul preoccu- 
pied, monopolized ; to think no thought, 
thrill to no feeling that does not point to 
her ; aye, and to crave high thoughts and 
the noblest feelings because they alone 
seem worthy of her, that absent, far-off, 
hopeless you adore. There you have the 
easy, decisive test. Most women never 
could apply it. Their petty vanity about 
their outside would come in. But you can, 
I am sure that you can, for you are too 
proud to be vain. The test is whether a 
man teases her for perpetual presence, for 
close contact ; or whether he cannot be too 
grateful for communion with her mind and 
with her heart. 

What stabbed me in the beginning of the 
note that I got yesterday, in the afternoon — 


HIS LETTERS 


35 


I could not read it then — I have read it 
now and well I understand its playfulness 
— you are most lovely when you play; — 
what shocked me was that you seemed to 
take all the outpourings of my heart for so 
much comedy ; that you seemed to class me 
with men whom, really, I look upon but as 
so many stags, and who seem capable of see- 
ing in the most perfect woman only the 
female of their species. 

You seemed — you must forgive me, I 
know now it was but seemed — you seemed 
to think me capable of soiling you in my 
own heart, under the cowardly shield of a 
comparison ; and you also seemed to say 
that my view coincided with that of a despi- 
cable idiot whose name I shall endeavor to 
forget. And do you know why the iron 
entered into my soul ? I said, she has 
heard things about me. They convince her 
that I only care for what most men care 
for. She cannot judge me for herself. 
And then I felt something of the madness 
of despair, the madness that cries, Let us 
curse God and die ! ” 

A single word will partially express how 


36 . HIS LETTERS 

much I owe to you. Until I had begun to 
dream of you, it was ten years since I had 
read voluntarily a line of poetry. Think of 
it ! For ten years I had looked upon the 
imaginings of those interpreters between 
earth and heaven as so many pretty lies. 
Ah, I do not need to read the poets now ! 
All they say has come back to me in a 
torrent, a flood. 

I will not breathe another syllable about 
myself and my own feelings. They are not 
worth it. I will do what I meant to do 
when I began ; calmly and sagely address 
myself to answering your questions — ques- 
tions for which I am very grateful, for 
reasons that you can guess. 

Camors ? I did not answer that question 
fully. Let me deliver a little lecture on 
Camors. Imagine me an Oxford don, if 
you please, with high waistcoat, coat of 
formal cut, short, meager whiskers, the rest 
of the face closely shorn, compressed and 
important lips. 

Messieurs et Mesdames : In Camors the 
author has unquestionably drawn a highly 
interesting figure, but has he proved his 


HIS LETTERS 


37 


case, that is the question ? M. Feuillet has 
essayed to show — [Is not this the true 
soporific, academical manner?] — that the 
code of honor is an inadequate substitute 
for religion. But suppose he shows that it 
is simply as strong and as weak as religion, 
neither better nor worse ? M. Feuillet tells 
us that the code of M. Camors worked well 
enough until it was shivered by collision 
with a great passion — a great, you would 
please to observe, not a little one. What 
reason have we to suppose that in precisely 
the same circumstances religion would have 
been a more effective shield ? The whole 
record of Christianity, ever since the priest 
first crept behind the throne of Con- 
stantine, demonstrates the contrary. We 
need not point to the long list of popes 
that cared more for the clews to the heart 
of a woman than for the keys of St. Peter. 
Look rather at Abelard, that Camors of the 
twelfth century, that wondrous doctor in 
theology, that man who, until he began to 
read lectures like this to a charming 
woman, was indeed a saint on earth. So 
M. Feuillet has proved nothing. He did 


38 


HIS LETTERS 


better with his other tragedy, the Petite 
Comtesse.” 

This is very nice and cogent, isn’t it ? 
But it doesn’t explain to me why you 
should have asked me the question. . . . 

Letter Twelfth, 

I know nothing about Isabella the 
Second. I recalled Marguerite of Valois, 
whom you insult by the comparison, 
because she was the sweetest woman in a 
century far better worth living in than this ; 
and because one of the most loyal-hearted 
men in France went cheerfully to death for 
her sake ; a fool, wasn’t he ? 

I burn your letters because they are 
sacred to me. I burn them from the same 
motive that makes it odious to me, disgust- 
ing to hear your name so much as men- 
tioned by other men. You cannot under- 
stand that. It seems funny to you. How 
absurd you must think my letters. They 
might be set with effect to some of the 
mock-sentimental music in “ Patience,” if 
you have not forgotten it. You are a 
very accomplished surgeon, madame. You 


HIS LETTERS 


39 


know precisely how and when to apply the 
caustic. I congratulate you upon the skill 
which testifies to your experience. You 
make, however, a somewhat excessive use 
of the remedy. A touch would have suf- 
ficed. 


Letter Thirteenth, 

Don^t you know what you did ? You 
committed the crime of llse-majestd. You 
sinned against yourself through me. You 
accused me of insulting by comparison a 
woman whom I adore, a woman whom I 
know to be an angel. Oh, my God ! my 
eyes swam over that first page, and I could 
read the rest only by snatches. Don’t you 
see that I love you, and that you must not, 
ah ! you must not play with me ? I don’t 
ask to see you, but oh, let me believe that 
you believe in me ! 

Ah, I have kissed this letter a thousand 
times, and yet I was half sorry to get it. 
You know it works like madness in the 
blood to be wroth with those you love.” 
And I was nursing the thought of such a 
sweet revenge, such revenge as the angels 


40 


HIS LETTERS 


may take upon a mortal. Ah,” I thought, 
“ I will wring tears of contrition from those 
sweet eyes. Wait a moment,” I thought, 
“ I care not what she has said in the past, I 
will do that which will cause her never to 
doubt in the future.” 

Oh, you stabbed me when you said that 
man A. would think exactly as I thought. 
Does he worship you ? Why, it was only 
last night that I was telegraphed to dine 
with a lot of men. That man L., a good 
man enough, was one of them. But I said. 

He will be sure to mention her name, and 
I cannot bear it.” So I declined the invita- 
tion. It is a horrible thing for a man to 
hear anything said by common men of a 
woman of his own caste. And how infin- 
itely more heart-scorching is it if she is the 
only woman in all the earth to him ! 

Almost all night I lay awake reading 
your last two letters. There are three now, 
thank God ! You will let me keep these, 
will you not ? I have them. Heaven knows, 
by heart, but there is a faint perfume about 
them which intoxicates me. 

But don’t you see, dear, how deadly a 


HIS LETTERS 


41 


wound you gave me in return for my humble 
prayer for forgiveness, when you accused 
me of comparing an angel with a dreadful 
woman, and put me on the level with a cad ? 
But if I did pain you, oh, forgive me ! I did 
not dare to tell you that I loved you. Those 
words that Shelley robbed me of have been 
always on my lips : 

One word is too often profaned 
For me to profane it. 

God bless you ! He will. It is with you 
and such as you that he peoples heaven ; or 
else let me be banished. 

Letter Fourteenth, 

I am in heaven. Now I cannot write for 
joy. If I drop to earth to-morrow, it will 
be to worship her who sent me skyward for 
a day. 

Ah, yes ; I can sleep to-night — sleep, that 
sweet counterfeit of death. I bless you, I 
am on my knees to you. 

Letter Fifteenth, 

Saturday Night. 

I came down from the clouds to-night. I 


42 


HIS LETTERS 


would not Stay there until to-morrow. You 
see the earth-born are restless in the ether. 
They breathe not well in too fine air. I 
prefer the Elysian fields. Here at least you 
can find papyrus, and a swan’s quill, and the 
ink of violets. That is why the gods are 
far less happy in their isolation on Olympus, 
than the tenants of the blissful islands 
where swift-footed Achilles, and Diomed, 
Athena’s darling, are. 

Ah, that page, one page in your letter f 
it drowned me in delight. You knew it 
would ; you mea7it to drown me. 

You will not think it strange when I tell 
you that I love you so deeply and so truly 
that I have often, in my thoughts, given 
you to other men — dead men — that would 
have been worthy of your smile. Once I 
gave you to Alexander, in the hour of his 
radiance, at Issus, while he still had the 
heart, as well as the prowess, of a demi-god. 
Ah, had it been you, and not that other 
whom he found in the tent of Artaxerxes, 
he would never have sent you to your 
father. He would have found such mag- 
nanimity impossible. 


HIS LETTERS 


43 


At another time I dealt with you in a 
fashion still more adequate. Then it was 
Julius that I thought of, the fateful, invin- 
cible, inscrutable ; the famous man of all 
this world. I could see his grave face lifted 
from the tablets where his hand still held 
the stilus, I could see his eyes blaze as 
they fell on one infinitely nobler, aye, and 
more fateful than that sweet serpent of the 
Nile. “ But no,” I thought, “ I will not give 
her to any man of that type. A poet would 
appreciate her better. I will let Catullus see 
her,” I said; “yes, Catullus in his youth^ 
before Lesbia had taught him to think evil 
of women. Then, indeed, he would have 
made the ‘ Epithalamium ’ a matchless mas- 
terpiece.” 

On the whole, though, I concluded to 
give you to Chastelard. You would have 
pitied him. You are not like that deadly 
witch of Scotland whose white bosom hid 
only a stone. You could never have stood 
by and seen him go to his death, and not 
have made one cry, one moan of agony, 
responsive to the reproachful , yearning of 
his latest upward look. 


44 


HIS LETTERS 


How glad I am these men are dead, for 
there are limits to unselfishness ! Luckily, 
there is no one living that is fit for you to 
touch with your gloved hand. 

U ntil to-day I had thought that the sweet- 
est thing I ever read, or dreamed I had 
read, in a lady’s letter, was a small word of 
four letters that slipped, as it seemed, un- 
premeditated from her pen. I am not likely 
to forget the context. It ran like this : 

What has happened to us, deaVy do you 
know?” The italics are mine. Long I 
pondered whether the word were meant or 
no. Being pessimistic I finally answered 
in the negative. But, for all that, it would 
keep ringing in my ears. But what do 
you think happened to me when I heard 
from the lips of the same lady that I might 
speak frankly — often — the only word that 
speaks my heart ? It matters not with what 
wistful and tender ingenuity one may seek 
to suggest the deepest and most devouring 
of the passions. There is no periphrasis, 
no synonym that can compass the full sig- 
nificance of the simple word, I love you — 
the one word which, for one long second, as 


ms LETTERS 


45 


with a jet of ecstasy, surrenders, empties, 
exhausts, denudes the soul. 

Your hygienic counsels are highly edi- 
fying. Would I like you to take care of 
me? Why, yes, if I were quite sure that 
the nurse would prove indulgent, and that 
the physician would make a free use of 
stimulants. I should hate to be fed on 
gruel and kept at a low temperature. So 
your rules are strict. I care not though 
they were constrictive even ; but I never 
could comply unless the author would per- 
sonally supervise the processes. Then, I 
am sure they could not fail. There is 
nothing, I think, ails me that a wise leech 
might not cure. And by the way, I love 
not that old man who was allowed to trace 
out the tell-tale lines upon your palm ; aye, 
and touch the lovely hillock that swells just 
below the thumb. I trust he, too, is dead. 
He ought to be. The men also that have 
danced with you ; I have killed them all in 
my fierce mind. As for that natatory cos- 
tume, if any man but Neptune has beheld 
it, I hope he got the cramp and sank. Oh, 
I have a dark suspicion ! . . . But I blas- 

4 


46 


HIS LETTERS 


pheme. Alas ! you made me, you deliber- 
ately made me. There are a dozen dif- 
ferent men in me, and you know how to 
dominate them all. But one chord you 
alone can touch : you alone can make me 
think of summer, of the songs of birds, the 
scent of gardens, the haunting accents of 
the poets, all the beauty and the mystery of 
life. I might love you in a hundred ways, 
but it is for this that I adore. It is when I 
think of this that I best measure the pro- 
foundness of my debt to you. I love the 
peri, she that stands at heaven’s gate dis- 
consolate, even better than I love the 
woman. And also, when I think of this, 
and forecast the tragic chances and more 
woeful changes of man’s lot, I question 
whether life can ever hold a better hour for 
me than this. That was a high teaching of 
the Stoics, that it ill becomes a man to stand 
with front lowered, at death’s mercy ; but 
that at his own judgment seat he should 
decide when he would die. It surely were 
the part of wisdom to select the hour 
when one is loftiest and happiest. But 
alas ! those austere, clear-eyed ones never 


HIS LETTERS 


47 


could have been in love ; they knew not 
with what desperation a lover clings to 
life. 

Once a lady asked me what words in all 
my letters I thought that she liked best. 
W ere they not those four words in which I 
had defined her mind’s rare quality, the 
motive that swayed her, the key to her life ? 
Not in vain had I probed her, but with a 
fond, sure instinct. From me the Sphinx 
cannot lock up her riddle. I play CEdipus 
too well. I guessed it, and therefore it was 
that I escaped — if indeed my escape be cer- 
tain — the fate of them that missed the se- 
cret. Is the lady answered rightly? It 
was a wise Russian who said, “ The head 
vaunteth a freedom which the wiser heart 
disclaims.” I thank you for translating it. 
It had else been to me a sealed oracle. I 
am glad that you are more learned than I ; 
for I would have you in all things loftier 
and larger, as well I knew you were in most. 
I can see best when I look up. But in one 
thing you can never come within gun-shot, 
eye-shot of me ! You can never feel for me 
a tenth part of what I feel for you. You 


48 


.HIS LETTERS 


will never, never, never say to me what I 
say now — I love you. 

Letter Sixteenth. 

Your letter of Saturday has this moment 
reached me. But for one word in it I should 
be willing, I should wish, to die now ; for 
well I know that I shall never be so happy 
again. You are going away. Good God ! 
can you suspect what that word means to 
me ? And yet I am glad of an opportunity 
of proving what my feeling is for you ; also 
glad to suffer by anything that you wish to 
do. Oh, when you told me about your 
health you wrung my heart ! Why would 
I hurt you, I that love you ? I that would 
even be content never to see you, never to 
write another word to you, if only every 
night and morning some strange pre- 
science would tell me that you were well 
and happy. Oh, you can’t believe me. 
It is the curse of my wayward life that 
now, when I would give my soul to be 
believed, I am not. And yet people go 
to church and pretend to believe in Mary 
of Magdala, and they will not see that 


HIS LETTERS 


49 


in the throes of a great passion a man too 
can be born again. 

Why, the fools and blind drove Hugo’s 
Marion de Lorme ” off the stage, because 
they could see nothing but coarseness in a 
line that might have been murmured long 
since beside the sea of Galilee : 

Et r amour nt a ref ait une virginite. 

Of course you have heard things about 
me ; you may hear more. Some of them 
may have been true, too, once — I know not 
— but they are not true now, not now. 
Oh, I have lots of enemies — thank God for 
that ! They have kept me alive by quick- 
ening the instinct of warfare, until a feeling 
fell on me so incomparably higher that I 
forgot all about them. 

How could I speak of you to A.? It 
makes my heart beat like a flail even to 
hear your name mentioned, and I know 
that I grow red to hear it. I despise A., 
and he knows it. I have seen him but once 
for a second in a year, and then, when he 
put out a hand, I gave him a slow single 
finger. L. is a very different man, but him 
I see as little as possible. I have seen him 


50 HIS LETTERS 

but thrice in a twelve-month, and then for a 
reason not directly connected with himself. 

I am puzzled to know what question it 
is about your art which you will put to me, 
and which I am to answer, right or wrong. 

As you yourself do not know the meaning 
of your pictures as well as I do, it is a hun- 
dred to one that I guess right. 

Ah, a great sadness clutches me- — you 
will never care for me ! 

Letter Seventeenth, 

Wednesday, Dawn. 

Did I not divine you, long since, far-off, 
to be an angel ? Did I not know that you 
maligned yourself when you told me that 
you were not very gentle ” ? What but 
an angel of gentleness and heavenly com- 
passion would have had the tender fore- 
thought to provide me, in that precious 
little note, with a talisman — a talisman 
against the doubts, misgivings, loneliness, 
sickness of hope deferred, that would have 
made those weeks of your absence a very 
hell to me. Now that I have that, and can 
clasp it, kiss it, stare at it until my brain 


HIS LETTERS 


51 


reels, my eyes swim, why ! I can be almost 
happy. 

There is still one thing — a little thing — 
that, in your boundless kindness, you might 
do for poor me. There must be in existence 
somewhere a photograph, a photograph of 
yourself, or at least of your portrait, of the 
sweetest thing that breathes upon this earth. 
Oh give it to me, give it ! It will help me to 
bear what is to come. I know well how a 
splendidly vitalized woman is libeled by a 
photograph ; but it will be better, so much 
better than nothing. And with the fires 
darting from my own eyes, as they probe it, 
I can inject vitality and splendor into it. 
Don’t say you can’t, will not. Do it, do it, 
for the sake of him whose life-blood you 
have drained a hundred times. 

I once heard someone say that you had 
a sweet little ear. Do you think I did not 
guess it, with all its deep significance ? 
Ah, nature fashioned you in her fondest, 
maddest mood. In a thrill of terror lest 
the earth should be dispeopled, she evoked 
you, to reassure herself ! 

That promised summer night ! It floats 


52 


HIS LETTERS 


in my enchanted vision ever. I had often 
dreamed of it, dreamed as we dream of 
heaven, long before I had any hope that it 
could ever be. Ah, to sit by your side near 
the water, to see the wind play with your 
hair, to watch with fond, furtive glances 
the heaving of your bosom, to drink the 
soft tones of your voice, to gaze with you 
over the waves, not more inscrutable than 
are my darling’s eyes, or into a sky less 
fathomless for all its depths, than my affec- 
tion ! And, then, perhaps — all at once — 
our eyes would meet, our hands would 
clutch and scorch each other, for one 
moment you might love me, and our souls 
would rush together at the meeting of our 
lips. That picture, oh, that picture ! when 
I see it I can write no more. My hand 
trembles ; I can write no more to-night. 

Letter Eighteenth, 

Those terrible days, Thursday and Fri- 
day, when I knew not even where you were ! 
But I will not say another word about it. I 
shudder to think that, shortly, you may say, 
“ Why, this is getting to be a terrible bore ! 


HIS LETTERS 


53 


Does the man think that I have nothinof to 
do but write letters to him and listen to his 
driveling?” That is sure to come ; let me 
not hasten it. 

I have a letter written on square white 
sheets ; a sweet letter, though there was a 
drop of bitter. It spoke of a surmise which 
had “swept' over your consciousness invol- 
untarily.” When I first read that, I wanted 
to seize the pen and use it as a knife. But 
I have sworn never, never to say one harsh 
word to you. If I speak now, it is with 
nothing but tenderness and sorrow in my 
heart. You will ^continue then to accuse 
me of baseness ? I say it not angrily, but 
softly. Does not such a surmise imply that, 
— for a moment, at least — you have believed 
me to be telling you untruths? It is not 
by lies I wish to win you ; you may attract, 
but you cannot keep a heart by such de- 
vices. I could not love a woman such — as 
— well, never mind — if I felt tempted to be 
untruthful to her. Don’t you think that 
soon or late a man’s wounded self-respect 
would hunger to avenge itself ? But, dear, 
I have said a hundred times more than I 


54 


HIS LETTERS 


meant to say. I do not believe you thought 
it ; I do not, really. If I did, I should 
choke. I could not speak, I could not write 
to you ; for how could one write what is not 
believed ? 

And now, since I have begun so badly, 
may I go on and tell you something which 
weighs like a pall upon my mind? You 
have asked me some searching questions; 
that is your prerogative ; but let me just put 
tentatively a little one on my own account. 
You need not answer it. Indeed, your 
silence would be an explicit answer. Let 
me tell you of a thought that clove me like 
an arrow, as I lay awake one night, since 
your departure. Suddenly, I thought, “ She 
is too wise ! ” I sprang up and got some of 
your letters. I ran over them with a new 
purpose and a most penetrating eye. Every 
now and then I marked a passage, and when 
I had finished, I went back and scrutinized 
those passages with the utmost care. Ah, 
never, I think, was microscope with greater 
power invoked to give up the inmost mean- 
ing of a woman’s words. I compared these 
passages with some that I remembered in 


HIS LETTERS 


55 


former letters of yours ; and then I said to 
myself, “There is no German metaphysician 
can evolve the myriad turns and phases of 
one passion from the depths of his inner 
consciousness ! ” What then ? Why, then 
comes the question which, posed, answers 
itself : “ How many times has she been 
madly, utterly in love?” To me it is an 
interesting question, because I know from 
sad experience that a man can love but 
once ; though he should not be blamed for 
mistaking the dawn for the noon sky. But 
I know this, that one man, not devoid of 
imagination either, could never have written 
certain words, except in the last six weeks 
of his life. Don’t pay any attention to this 
question. That, as you once told me, is the 
best way. 

Don’t write to me ; I am miserable. 

Letter Nineteenth. 

I am writing to you at five o’clock in the 
morning. I have been restless ; perhaps 
in written speech I shall find a sort of 
calm. 

You said in one of your letters that you 


56 


HIS LETTERS 


might have to pause, to stop, to chill me ; 
in another, that the day might come when I 
would hate you. That day can never come. 
But I passed through many phases of feeling, 
yesterday, and at last, when I had to go to 
bed without a line from you, I was chilled 
indeed. It had seemed impossible to me 
that you could leave me with nothing but 
a telegram that, taken by itself, distressed 
me. I could not be so unkind to you. 

In your Monday’s letter you forbade me 
to write to you. I read the words carefully 
again last night before I burned the note. I 
burned every scrap of your last letters last 
night. I haven’t a line of yours now. I 
know this is what you wish, but I did it 
in a gust of anger, and I have been so sorry 
since. Oh, I have such a bad temper ! If 
you knew how bad it is, you would detest 
me. But it is dreadful to be chilled ! If 
I must die, let me be scorched to death. 
Ah ! I think that you, at least, would feel 
some pity if you knew what an agony 
it is to be in love. To pant and writhe 
incessantly with hope unsatisfied ; to stretch 
out one’s arms wildly, mutely, and clasp 


HIS LETTERS 


57 


nothing. Oh, you cannot guess even 
what I mean. You are an icicle; you have 
told me so. You must be, or you could not 
talk of chilling a man in such a plight as 
mine. 

Is it because I tell you that I love you, 
love you ; that for the first time in my life I 
know what love is ; is that the reason that 
you say, “ I may have to chill you ” ? 

Oh, why, why don’t you put me out of 
my pain ? I wouldn’t let a dog suffer as 
you make me. 

Later, Eight o'clock . — Four hours more ! 
The postman has come and gone. Still 
not a line from you. My God ! don’t you 
ever mean to write to me again ? Must I 
live through another day like yesterday ? 
Have mercy. 

Letter Twentieth. 

I have your letter. Heavens, how much 
I have to say ! Shall I say it well ? I 
know not, and I care not ; only let me say 
it quickly. First, let me whisper to you — 
no, let me darken the room first ; there — 
give me your ear, though it is hard to do. 


58 


HIS LETTERS 


for I am on my knees, not by your side. 
Let me whisper to you, oh, so low that you 
yourself shall scarcely hear it, that for me 
you have no secret, no surprise. When I 
saw your pictures they produced an extra- 
ordinary effect on me. I pierced, riddled 
them with my eyes. At last I thought I 
guessed the secret of their strangely complex, 
mysterious, resistless power over my imagi- 
nation. ''Why,” I thought, "she holds the 
brush as of a vestal virgin who has dreamed 
she was Faustina. My God, what a celes- 
tial, maddening, destroying combination ? 
But it cannot be. Such things don’t 
happen, don’t exist except in the crater of 
your own volcanic imagination. You have 
given woman a million charms in your 
fancy, to which she has not, in fact, the 
slightest title, and now, just because this 
one, whom you have not even seen, exerts, 
in her art alone, on your keen, quivering 
senses — for they are keen enough, they are 
that — a strange, nameless sorcery, you must 
straightway proceed to credit her with in- 
credible fascinations, which the Greeks, 
in their wildest ecstasy, never dared as- 


HIS LETTERS 


59 


cribe to but one goddess. . . And so you 
haunted me ; and I have asked myself 
strange, foolish questions ; and I have laid 
traps for you ; oh, such obvious traps, they 
could not check your little foot more than 
a second. At the worst you would only 
feel that you had tripped over a violet ; 
and you did trip over one. Ah, but I 
think you saw it, and laughed gayly ! . . 

Oh yes,” I said, “ she is the Sphinx to all 
other men, but I have guessed her riddle, 
and therefore it may be that I shall live 
and not die.” But presently came doubt 
again. '' Outside of myths and legends,” I 
said to myself, “no such bliss could come to 
a man ”. . . and then I rushed to the other 
extreme. I was angry with you for having 
actually made me believe in an impossi- 
bility. I fiercely demanded, “ How many 
times has she madly, utterly loved?” For 
I thought, “ Now, if she has had lovers, she 
will be angry and will show her anger. 
But if ... if she has not loved — my God, 
it is impossible! Yet if . . . admitting 
the impossibility a moment, she will give 
me a strange, enigmatic answer; she will 


6o 


HIS LETTERS 


not be angry or reproachful ; she will 
simply say to herself, ' Ah, he is puz- 
zled, and no wonder ; I am puzzled my- 
self/ ” 

But scarcely had the letter gone before 
I tried to overtake it. I looked at your 
portrait, at its mouth and chin ; and I 
knew that, should I get that ambiguous 
answer, I should be conscience-smitten; that 
never, never should I entirely get over it. 
That was what I meant when I told you 
that I felt as if I had committed that sin 
against the Holy Ghost, and it was sacri- 
lege to dare to love a saint ; and yet I do 
dare to love her a million, million times for 
that treasure her heart, which she keeps in 
store for him she loves. Oh, darling, dar- 
ling, I am fainting ! do you mean to give 
it to me ? Tell me, tell me ! see me only 
when you like, as far off as you will, but 
tell me instantly, for God’s sake, that of 
late you have meant, that you do mean, 
some day, to give it to me. Oh, tell me, 
tell me ; do you want me to die of love at 
this moment ? I am dying. . . . 


HIS LETTERS 


6i 


Letter Twenty-first. 

I wrote you a long letter last night, but 
this morning I won’t send it, lest it should 
give you some pain. It was a cry of agony 
and of farewell. I meant to send back 
with it that little thing which I had worn 
all the days, and kept crushed against my 
mouth and nostrils all the nights. But 
when I found it close to my mouth this 
morning I could not send it back just yet. 

But I cannot write much this morning. 
I am trying, trying to understand why God 
permits a woman like yourself to live, who 
is at once so lovely and so cruel. What 
crime have I committed that I should be 
made the victim of your cruelty? No, I 
cannot write just yet. I am trying to rec- 
oncile the words you speak with other 
things that seem to show a tender heart. 

Don’t you think, on the whole, you had 
better unchain me and let me g6 ? I am 
going away on Friday, at ten — that is, I 
leave my house at that hour. How much 
do you really care, I wonder. How much 
can a woman, who speaks such words de- 

5 


62 


HIS LETTERS 


liberately, care about any human being ex- 
cept herself ? 

Letter Twenty^second, 

Tuesday. 

Ah, yesterday will live forever in my 
memory! Your letter! Such a letter! 
What would you ^do with me ? Do you 
want to destroy me in advance? Is that a 
wise economy of love ? But you have 
never said you loved me. You don’t know 
whether you do or not. That was a dread- 
ful word to me. I must have that . . . 
nothing less. Well, I know that there are 
other things you could give ; things I 
would sell my soul to get. But seest thou 
not ; could I but gain thy heart, I should 
not need to sell my soul to get them ? 
They would all be mine then forever, inde- 
feasibly, unshakably. As things are, it was 
an appalling truth that you uttered, and 
don’t think I have not foreboded it. Ah, 
your words, ''To-morrow you may do or 
say or think something that shall rob you 
of your power and me of an illusion.” Oh, 
perhaps I have done that already in the 


HIS LETTERS 


63 


little space since those words fell. If I had 
your heart, nothing I could do or say or 
think could dislodge me ; for at worst it 
could be but a blunder, repented of as soon 
as done. 

How then am I to win the heart which is 
still free? It must be free, since it would 
instantly recognize the loss of freedom ? I 
can only do it by convincing you beyond 
the possibility of misconception that I love 
you better than I love myself. I must win 
it by self-sacrifice ; there is no other way. 
Oh, I don’t think that my self-sacrifice 
would win the laurels of Philistia ; my 
notion of altruism would seem to the 
Philistines, I imagine, quite indistinguish- 
able from naughtiness. 

I really do not believe you know that if 
some day in a moment of feminine soft- 
ness and ineffable pity, you gave your love 
to me, you would do yourself the least 
harm in the world. Perhaps I should 
account it the noblest of impulses. If a 
man doesn’t thirst day and night to pos- 
sess, in the completest sense of the word, 
the woman he pretends to love, he does not 


64 


HIS LETTERS 


love her. It is only in the time and cir- 
cumstances that one can test the depth and 
force of his unselfishness. Do you remem- 
ber telling me, in one of those burned 
letters, that a woman who envied you your 
beauty and your intellect, and I know not 
what besides, said to someone, who told 
you, “ As for the fair Heloise she invited 
him, flattered him, completely charmed and 
dazzled him, and so, in art, he is her 
friend.” That you had charmed and daz- 
zled was so true ; the woman’s instinct 
was unerring ; nothing but the cold facts 
could perplex, baffle, and confound her. 
Who would believe that I had not been 
at your house, or in Capua, or the Lord 
knows where ? that you do not know me ; 
that we have not met ? ... It is my 
business, then, as he that loves you, to 
do that which you are too generous to 
suggest, and to deny myself that on which 
I have been feeding ever since you went 
away — the hope of seeing you immediately 
after your return. The cackling and the 
babbling will soon pass away. In three 
weeks, at furthest, they will have put all 


HIS LETTERS 


65 


their prying, spiteful questions, and they 
will have got their answer. Then, if by 
that time you have not forgotten me, I 
will implore you not to punish me because 
I loved you better than myself, but to let 
me come and look at you, as I now look 
at your picture, perhaps ... to take your 
hand. . . . 

Letter Twenty -third. 

One hour after I posted a letter yes- 
terday I would have let a hand be lopped 
off to recover it ! I do not write, my pen is 
driven by the mood of the moment. There 
is something in my brain that forces me, if 
I speak at all, so to speak that words shall 
seem things, realities, and that a mood shall 
live upon the paper even as it lives in me. 
So in certain moods I needs must say 
words that shock and horrify. . . Ah, 
your moods all ought to be transcribed, 
when you write to one who cares for you, 
for they are all beautiful and lofty. Even 
your kiss would be that of an angel, but 
with me it is not so, and of some moods of 
mine you shall never more behold a sign. 


66 


HIS LETTERS 


In these letters that came to me this 
morning and that I have read with tears, 
you asked me to swear on the honor of a 
man who wishes to respect himself, that I 
will never again write to you letters like 
those I sent to you on the morning when 
you went away. I had already sworn ; 
now I repeat the oath, But that is not all 
I swear. In one of those dear letters you 
say a word that flew straight to my heart, 
to all that is left of generous and noble in 
my nature. You said, “ let me lean upon 
you.” O God!” I cried, “how can she 
lean upon me unless I make myself some- 
thing better ? By Heaven, I will try ! ” 
Now listen ; I swear to you that never 
again, whatever may be my thoughts, will 
I say to you by letter, or should I ever 
see you, by word of mouth, a syllable that 
I would not have my mother hear ; not 
one ! not one ! Oh, believe me, there are 
still in me some possibilities of grandeur, 
but you, you only can evoke them. I 
am going to give you a consummate and 
decisive and incredible proof of what I am 
capable of doing in the way of self-abase- 


HIS LETTERS 


67 


ment. For days I have been dizzy with 
the thought that perhaps I should see 
you soon. Well, I renounce it ! Were I 
to see you now — now, or until I have 
gained more self-control, and forced my- 
self to think of you as a saint only — you 
could never, never lean on me. I want you 
to think of me with honor and with implicit 
trust. Oh, it must be better, better, better 
in the end, when one must die, to know 
that one has been a martyr, than to have 
plunged in earthly bliss. 

I read thee deeply, truly, my beloved. 
It is only on the lovely surface that you 
are one of the women who madden and 
enslave. At heart, at heart you are a 
seraph imprisoned thus — I know not how — 
and I know, yes, I foresee, that you would 
hate yourself and abhor me, if on awaken- 
ing, some morning, you should find dust 
upon your wings. Not through me shall 
one fleck rest there, not one fleck, no, not 
one. 

Later , — You have asked me another of 
your searching questions. Oh, what an 
adorable intellect is yours ! This one I 


68 


HIS LETTERS 


will try to answer ; and I will do it, as I 
will always write hereafter, in words that 
a child might read. What an exquisiteiy 
sensitive and delicate instrument is your 
heart ! I used to think mine sensitive, but 
it is a dull, dense thing to yours. One 
word more before I follow that probing 
question to the deep place where it is quiv- 
ering. What is the past to me ? to you ? 
I simply never lived till now. I cannot 
conceive myself living in a world which you 
have ceased to glorify. I am nothing, 
know nothing but the present and the fu- 
ture, and they are what you choose to make 
them. You are the first, the only woman I 
ever saw — the only mortal thing embody- 
ing what I knew and felt must exist some- 
where — the beauteous, mystic combination 
that haunts us on the convases of the 
Renaissance ; the being at once ethereal- 
ized and carnalized ; the divine mystery 
that has the body of a lovely woman, and 
yet whose wings are fully grown, Oh, 
until one has seen those wings growing and 
growing there — he has not lived, he was 
not born. 


HIS LETTERS 


69 


And yet one delaying word ! Of course 
I want you to pour out all moods to me. 
Why, that is a kind of love, the best kind, 
and I will be so grateful for it, and try to 
feel that such love is enough. Never think 
that I would wish to cramp or dwarf or 
stifle you, or check with a word or thought 
one of your sweet, wayward fluctuations. It 
would never enter into my head to wish to 
“adapt you to myself.” Why, it is not my- 
self I love at all — it’s you. I will prove it 
to you in a memorable way ; I will “ force 
myself to have strength,” you shall see. 

And now that question, “ Do I think 
marriage, or the same thing, kills love 
always?” I will at least answer truthfully, 
first from the man’s point of view ; then I 
will try to seize the woman’s, though for 
me that will be difficult. Granting the ex- 
istence in a man of an organization suf- 
ficiently delicate by nature, and sufficiently 
enriched and attuned by cultivation to ap- 
preciate a woman of absolute refinement — I 
assert, with perfect confidence, that whether 
or no fruition strikes the death-knell of that 
which sought it depends upon the woman. 


70 


HIS LETTERS 


If what such a man as I have indicated 
feels for a given woman be a mere caprice, 
or any of the little passions that have their 
root in curiosity, vanity, or mere desire, 
there can be no doubt whatever that poses- 
sion means a more or less rapid, but in any 
case inevitable, refrigeration and decay. 
But whose fault is it that the man felt only 
one of those emotions that, by the law of 
their existence, are easily, quickly satisfied ? 
It is the woman s fault ; she reaps as she 
has sown. 

The other day, ten days ago, a sudden 
impulse made me take up a little tract that 
hitherto I had not cared to read, and that I 
trust your eyes will never look upon — the 

Kreutzer Sonata.” I went through it 
carefully, and laid it down with a sigh ; for 
here was a case, it seemed to me, where the 
heart knew not its own bitterness, divined 
not why it was so sad. And yet the man 
who could write My Religion ” deserved 
to know what love is, and to have been in 
turn beloved. But, in fact, nothing was 
more clear to me than that Tolstoi has 
never been in love. Having got this clew 


HIS LETTERS 


71 


by intuition, I went back and tested it in 
a hundred sorry and shabby conjunctures 
where, as he averred, mutual disgust and 
loathing were the sad sequel of desire. There 
was not one of these in which one-could not 
see that the man would have acted other- 
wise had it been love he felt instead of its 
poor counterfeit ; had he thought always 
of her and of himself never, or only for 
short and repented intervals. Ah, when a 
man truly loves a woman, he cannot bear 
the thought that she should lose through 
him, even for a second, her self-esteem. 
What were all delights, the most madden- 
ing, compared with the undying agony 
of such a thought ? Above all, I noticed 
in Tolstois sketch a strange blindness to 
the fact that it is when a woman has 
been kindest that a man needs not only 
the devotion, but the wisdom and tact of 
an archangel, if she is not to shrink from 
him ... a little. But I must pause and 
cool my style — or I shall shortly grow half 
guilty in my thoughts again. But how 
would it be with a woman, with a supreme 
woman, a woman of genius like yourself, for 


72 


HIS LETTERS 


instance? Ah, here I must speak with the 
utmost doubt and diffidence. Could her 
love outlive fruition ? Admitting that it was 
real love, the largest, the most complex, at 
once the most ardent and divinest, I cannot 
speak with certainty, but, alas, I fear that 
hers — that yours — would not. For it is 
plain that in such a case the reverse of what 
we were just saying would be true. Her 
constancy of will and of desire would depend 
upon the man — and what man living, or that 
ever lived, has been endowed with an organi- 
zation so exquisite that it could satisfy the 
delicacy, even if it could the fervor of her 
own ? There is no such man — there never 
was — and it is a wise instinct that prompts 
certain women to shrink with horror from 
the hour of possession ; for, for them it will 
strike almost certainly the knell of passion 
— which dead, affection will soon languish — 
and what then would be left for the men 
who loved them but the grave ? 

Oh, I thank you for the portrait. I have 
pored over it long. I shall not tell you what 
I see in it, but the old man w^as almost as 
wise as I. I see where it is inadequate, but 


HIS LETTERS 


73 


it is divinely lovely ; and yet I have re- 
strained myself from pressing it wildly to 
my lips. I have sworn not to kiss it, and 
therefore I am holding the picture with 
a firm hand, at a safe distance. Fear not, 
beloved, and think not that I say this jest- 
ingly. I will be strong, and you shall lean 
on me. But will you not say one sweet word 
to encourage and thank me ? 

Letter Twenty-fourth, 

A boy ! what poignant flattery ! Would 
to God I were, if I could get the boy s 
heart back again, his trust and faith ! But 
you will not help me call it back again. 
You will not give the little thing with which 
a boy’s heart is satisfied ; little to you, but 
not to me to whom, of late, everything is 
symbol. 

Loyal to you, loyal to you ? That you 
could say that implies a doubt. These 
doubts destroy me. 

Ah, I see the certainty that you are about 
to escape my importunate letters — Good 
God ! I suppose you class them with others 
that you receive daily — is already having 


74 


HIS LETTERS 


Upon me the dividing effect of distance. 
You will let me down gently. You will 
refrigerate by merciful degrees ; and at last, 
when you are fifteen hundred miles away, 
you will tell me that on the whole and con- 
sidering all things, it might be well to let 
this correspondence cease. 

I can bear the stroke ; I have expected it. 

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that 
you should say, “ When we meet I shall be 
of ice; expect nothing, hope nothing. You 
will hate me.” I have never supposed that 
you were really anything but ice ; that your 
feelings were anywhere except in your head. 
I never, in my sober moments, expected any- 
thing, hoped anything. And if you should 
ask me in a perfunctory way to come and 
see you, I should know that you did not 
mean it, and that at heart you would rather 
that I stayed away. 

Let me tell you that I said certain things 
to you, not with the least wish to please 
you, but because they pleased me, because 
they eased my heart, and because they were 
true. Let me tell you it is a pleasure to 
dwell for an hour in a fool’s paradise. You 


HIS LETTERS 


75 


are one of those wise prophets that know 
how to provide for the fulfillment of their 
own prophecies. In one thing, however, 
unluckily for me, you are mistaken. I shall 
never hate you. I am too deeply grateful 
to you for that. You cannot, at your light 
will, rob me of the feelings which are an 
eternal wellspring of stimulus and joy. 

I am glad you read my second letter, that 
went by post, with some sympathy. I 
thought it would get that if it reached you. 
To-day, a week hence, it might be differ- 
ent. 

I shall go on writing to you until I get 
what may be called the second degree of 
congelation. Even then, I will try to thaw 
out a last few words. Meanwhile I will rack 
my brains for topics of an airy, entertaining, 
and undisturbing nature. Let me catch the 
careless, mocking, fin de silcle tone which 
matches so perfectly the disillusions and the 
shams of life. How tired you must be of 
tragedy. It is quite out of date — bad form. 
Bon voyage^ madame, bon voyage I I trust 
the girlish ardor with which you shall wel- 
come new sensations will be as fresh and 


76 


HIS LETTERS 


artless as the boyish folly that craved a 
word from you. 

Letter Twenty -fifth, 

Thursday, Midnight. 

It will perhaps remove what seems to ex- 
ercise a slight strain upon your mind if I 
tell you what is the truth, that I have just 
burned every one of your letters that I had 
left, talisman and all. There is, now, abso- 
lutely nothing that you ever touched or saw, 
except the books and a little piece of ribbon 
which I return to you. This will enable 
you to say with even more complete cer- 
tainty than usual, “ I do not know the 
man.” 

Au plaisir de vous revoir dans Tautre 
monde, madame ! 

Letter Twenty-sixth, 

I don’t expect you to answer this letter. 
I have lost all hope of ever seeing your 
handwriting again. If you consent even 
to look at this it will be infinitely more 
than I deserve. I do not ask you to forgive 
me, for I know that I have offended this 


HIS LETTERS 


77 


time past forgiveness. I have tried all day 
to frame a few words, but I could not, and 
if now, at last, I put forth a feeble cry, it is 
not to plead the faintest justification for my 
wicked act, but only, only to mitigate a 
little the nature of the feeling with which 
you now regard me. For it is not quite 
scorn with which you ought to look on me, 
no, not quite that. It is rather the horror 
with which we look on the insane. 

It is only within the last few hours that I 
have myself been able to understand what 
happened. Up to eight o’clock last night I 
had shut my eyes and refused to consider 
settled the fact that you were really going 
away. I had not grasped it at all. I had 
all day been very much excited, passing 
swiftly from one mood to another, thrilled 
with rapture one hour, and melted to sobs 
the next. But what your going away would 
really signify to me had not been disclosed 
to me at all. It was not until I sat alone in 
my bedroom — your last letter — yes, the last 
— had just reached me, that a sense of the 
appalling loneliness which would be mine 

upon the morrow, and the next day, and for 
6 


78 


HIS LETTERS 


weeks to come, flashed upon me. I per- 
ceived suddenly that I had been literally 
kept alive by your letters for a fortnight 
past, and by the power I seemed to have of 
calling you up to my mind, as long as you 
were in the same atmosphere. 

But that was because I knew in which 
direction to think, and where you must be, 
at least, at certain hours. But then, all at 
once, I saw what would befall me : that a 
few hours later I would never know where 
you were, that I could not even tell in 
which State you would be, that my imagi- 
nation would never be able to find you, but 
that it would grope and flounder like a lost 
soul in the abyss. Ah, I never can make a — 
sane person understand what this convic- 
tion meant to me. I have found, since I 
began to know you, that I could live in the 
brain, as other people live in the air ; and 
it had been so infinitely sweeter than any 
life I had ever known that the thought of 
losing it maddened me. I could not think 
or reason at all. I could only keep saying 
to myself, ‘'She is gone, gone, and I can 
never find her ! ” And then the awful 


HIS LETTERS 


79 


blankness of my existence as it had been 
until lately, and as it now would be again, 
fell on me with such a shudder as one in a 
trance might feel who hears them nailing 
the coffin over his head. Then I seized 
your two last letters, as if they were wires 
that led to you, and might bring rescue. 
I tried to read them, but I could not as 
a sane man would ; not as even I can 
read them now, to-night when it is too 
late. You told me to “be reasonable,” 
and alas ! at that moment I had no reason. 
It seemed to me that at the moment of 
departure, and when I most desperately 
needed every thread of hope and faith, 
it seemed to me that you had taken every- 
thing from me, that you had chosen my 
hour of need, not to accent but to attenu- 
ate ; and then as I thought that, leaping 
quickly from bad to worse, I said, “Oh, 
Heavens! she is regretting. She wishes 
to recall her words. She would rather I 
did not have them. She is thinking of 
herself all the time, and not at all of me 
that am to be left here in this frightful soli- 
tude.” And then, as a man that has a knife 


8o 


HIS LETTERS 


Stuck in his heart turns it round in the frenzy 
of his pain, I tore out of my breast-pocket 
all the latest letters that I had been treasur- 
ing from a sort of blind instinct that I should 
need them, and I hurled them into the 
flames — all — all, even the card which bore 
the dates and places. 

And I found, a minute afterward, when I 
tried to pull some charred remnants out of 
the fire, that I could only recall the ad- 
dresses in N. and O. and that the rest had 
gone from me. 

For a while, as I sat, staring at the 
embers, I seemed to have no distinct con- 
sciousness of any thought or feeling; and 
the first thing that took shape in my mind 
was a wicked desire that I might not suffer 
like that all alone. My God ! ” I said, 
shall not she suffer too ? ” As if hurting 
you could make me any less wretched ! 
Oh, I tell you that such wickedness as that 
deserves more pity than detestation ; for 
no sane man could feel it toward anyone — 
and how, in Heaven’s name, to you, who 
had been, that very day, an angel' of kind- 
ness and sympathy, who had wept because 


HIS LETTERS 


8i 


I had wept? Why could I not think of 
that, last night? Because I was mad with 
grief and the anticipation of what I was to 
suffer, and self-pity for the destruction of 
those letters, and a wild wish to pull down 
the firmament in a general ruin. And then 
I wrote those vile masterpieces of iniquity ! 
the two notes that you got this morning. 
I had a maniac’s ingenuity in coining 
phrases that would wound. In my mind I 
sullied you by odious doubts and suspicions 
that you had no doubt been playing with 
me, amused yourself studying a new and 
morbid type, but that having exhausted it, 
you would now, when you were a long way 
off, and could not be teased by hourly en- 
treaties, let me know that on the whole you 
did not care to have so much of your time 
taken up with correspondence, and that I 
had better employ my talents in a more 
useful way. Oh, yes ; all night I kept say- 
ing to myself that that must be the epitome 
of your thought, for otherwise you would 
not go away. Ah, you must see that I was 
mad. 

I was so afraid that I should oversleep 


82 


HIS LETTERS 


the hour of departure ; and what, as the 
night wore on, seemed of all things the 
most intolerable was that you should go with- 
out my telling you that I didn’t care — didn’t 
care — and make you, if I could, believe me. 
And so, in a fever of haste, I went out soon 
after dawn, long before the shops were 
open. I wandered about the streets, came 
home again, wondered if there was any 
other fiendish thing that I could do, remem- 
bered my little ribbon, plucked that off, 
determined to make you understand that I 
wouldn’t keep anything of yours ; werrT^ut 
again and found a messenger, and then, 
having completed my despicable work, 
came home and threw myself all dressed 
upon my bed. I was tired, exhausted, I 
suppose. At any rate I was in a traubled 
sleep when a servant woke me up to give 
me those — those six lines that you had 
traced upon a card. The torture that I 
have gone through since I got those words 
of yours were not like the torments of the 
night. They were not those of a fiend, but 
of a wrecked and hope-forsaken human 
being. I knew that there could be no for- 


HIS LETTERS 


83 


giveness for me now ; that even if you 
wished you could not think as kindly as 
perhaps you did. But I thought that to- 
night, if I was able to write at all, I would 
try to picture something of what I have 
gone through, so that, instead of despising 
me, you might be moved to feel a little 
compassion. I do not ask you to say that 
you can look upon me more in sorrow than 
in anger. I do not ask you ever to speak 
to me again. You have only by silence to 
let me know, as gently as you can, that you 
do not care to receive any more letters 
from me ; indeed, I could not write again if 
you would let me, for I have lost the next 
addresses, they are destroyed. 

In a letter which I wrote you Wednesday 
afternoon I said, “ Forget me not ! ” The 
only word that I dare say to you to-night is 
forget. Forget, forget ! for then, perhaps, 
months hence — you have been to me so in- 
finitely forbearing — you might — you might 
forgive. Would it at least raise me from 
the dust if I swear to you that sooner 
than again give way to the infernal im- 
pulse to make you share my suffering, I 


84 


HIS LETTERS 


would find a quick and easy way to rid you 
of a curse ? Would it ? But no, answer 
not ; never address me again. 

Letter Twenty-seventh. 

Friday. 

I went out last night, in the blizzard, at 
midnight, to post that outcry of despair ; 
and this morning — oh, this morning ! I find 
my wild prayer answered, answered before 
you heard it. Oh, no ; you heard it in your 
heart. Ah, that was Christlike ! Why, if 
there were no religion, such women as you 
would make men like to invent one. 
Whence, whence sprang in your white 
bosom that exhaustless fund of gentleness 
and forgiveness ? Oh, worshiped one, my 
savior, why did not you punish me, destroy 
me ? I wanted, I yearned to be destroyed 
by you, in a blast of justice. I wanted you 
to trample on me, to set your small heel on 
my worthless neck, and grind me into dust 
in the fury of an offended goddess ; and 
you do not, you will not. Ah, you came 
straight from heaven ; the earth is no place 
for you ! 


HIS LETTERS 


85 


Do I know what is the meaning of that 
pain at the heart ? Before I knew you I 
longed for sudden death. I cared not how 
soon it came. But you, ah, that is differ- 
ent ! You are a blessing to the earth. No 
one with a soul can look at you and not be 
better for the sight. Oh, you should never 
have a pang ! When I think that you may 
be suffering now, and that I can do nothing, 
I that would die for you — O God ! let me 
wait a little, I can write no more. 

Later, — See, dear, I am kneeling to you 
at this instant ; I am clasping your knees ; 
I am looking up at you and praying you 
that the very moment you receive this letter 
you will telegraph me that you are perfectly 
well. Don’t leave me in this agony of anx- 
iety a second longer than you can help. 
You will not, will you ? Oh, let me thank 
heaven for these electric wires ! 

Those vile letters that I wrote in my de- 
spair and anger, there is nothing you could 
say of them that I would not underscore 
with a ferocious, scathing emphasis. They 
were unmanly, despicable, dastardly, be- 
cause they aimed to make you suffer, from 


86 


HIS LETTERS 


no reason, from no better reason — think of 
it ! — than because I was miserable myself. 
Why, that is the very distinctive mark of 
fiends, who, because they are in hell, try 
to vent their spite and envy on harmless 
human beings ! 

Something you let drop of youth. What 
meaning has the word to one that thinks of 
you ? I happen to know that you are more 
than a dozen years younger than I,x^nd I 
would to God the interval were less. And 
let me tell you, dearest, that if you were 
much younger than you are, I could not love 
you, not quite so much as I do now. You 
would know less ; your range of vision 
would be narrower, your feelings less in- 
tense and sensitive. They could not an- 
imate, inflame, electrify every fiber of your 
lovely body as they do now. It is only a 
full-grown woman, in the flower of her mind, 
her soul, and her vitality, that can both feel 
passion and inspire it. It is only for the 
ignorant that Elaine has any charm. To 
me give Guinevere. Ah ! if I might but sit 
by your side, and recall the sad idyl to your 
sweet listening ear. 


HIS LETTERS 


87 


Somewhere in this letter I have used 
the word anger. Anger, anger with you ? 
Now listen to me, my beloved, I invoke ho 
god; but here in the forum of my conscience, 
which is god enough for me, I swear to you 
that if I ever again say to you, deliberately 
and intentionally, one word that hurts you, 
you shall not need to smite me with your 
forgiveness. I will punish myself. Believe 
it, and say to me that you believe it. Say 
it, dear, and prove it by writing to megayly 
and teasingly ; just to see how meek and 
lowly I will always, while life lasts, be to 
you. 

Let me just touch on one thing that you 
said in one of your latest letters. You see, 
divinest, that I remember every word, 
though the paper that had left your hand 
exists no longer. You said that when I saw 
you I must expect nothing, for I should find 
you de glace. As I read that I said, “Is it 
possible that this gracious lady imagines 
that when I see her I could pain her by 
showing her a consciousness of her gra- 
ciousness ? Does she think that by a look, 
a tone, a syllable, an accent, I would betray 


88 


HIS LETTERS 


a recollection of some sweet word she 
might have whispered to me in a distant 
dream ? Does she not know that if a man 
is worthy to kiss the hem of her gown, it is 
when a woman has been kind that he is 
humblest ; that it is to degrade me infinitely 
to apprehend the contrary ? ” Ah, no ! be- 
lieve me, when the day comes that I shall 
look upon your face, you shall find me suf- 
ficiently conventional. And I am sure that 
you and I have between us brains enough 
to talk in a decorous, lively, and fruitful 
way even about the weather. 

Oh, what have you done with my little 
silken string, the only thing I had left that 
I thought you had touched, my precious 
ribbonlet? What have you done with it? 
Have you thrown it out of the window, or 
flung it on the floor, to be trodden on and 
swept away? If you have, it has served me 
right, but if by chance you have kept it, tell 
me, will you not ? and I will tell you what 
to do with it, not now, but on some distant 
day, when I am not so sorrowful, and when 
I know that you are well. 

Tell me one thing more. What did you 


HIS LETTERS 


89 

mean by bidding’ me be entirely loyal ? Do 
I understand your thought ? I need no 
such command. It is utterly impossible for 
me to think of another woman ; all others 
simply do not exist. It is not possible for 
a man to be unfaithful when he truly loves. 
He is like ice, dead to every other member 
of her sex. This is true, and some day I 
will tell you more of this . . . Now, dear- 
est, a last word. Let no fear of being 
hurt by me ever again trouble your soul. 
The remorse and agony that I have known 
in these last two days have done the work 
of a lifetime. So, do what you will to me, 
never shall you hear a word or see a look of 
reproach. Good-night, good-night, good-by! 

Letter Twenty-eighth. 

Ah, you did pity ; you could find it in 
your heart to forgive. Your telegram — I 
see — I see the heavenly compassion that 
beamed from your eyes, as you whispered 
those words of balm and joy ineffable, to a 
self-stricken one who desired, who yearned 
to die. “ Everything is forgiven and under- 
stood.’' Forgiven ? God bless her 1 Yet, 


90 


HIS LETTERS 


alas ! so sweet a woman might out of sheer 
gentleness forgive brutality she could not 
comprehend. But “understood” — oh, did 
your instinct tell you what that word would 
mean to me ? You could not “ understand ” 
unless you had begun to care for me just a 
little. When you said “understood” it was 
as if you had shyly, shyly touched my 
parched lips with your soft, fingers. Ah, 
yes ; you can see, looking back, what I too 
am able to discern, that your going away 
was the unmeant, infallible touchstone of 
the depth and nature of the feeling that I 
have for you. If I could unshaken, nay un- 
ruffled, have seen you, at the last moment, 
go away for weeks and thousands of miles, 
if I could have seen that without a heart- 
splitting explosion and very earthquake of 
the soul — I should have utterly miscon- 
strued the fervor and the quality of what I 
took to be affection. It would have proved 
that I had taken the name of love in vain. 
Surely you will never again ask me to search 
my heart, and weigh and measure the truth 
of my words to you. I gave, without mean- 
ing, a terrible proof of my sincerity, for I 


HIS LETTERS 


91 


hurt yoM—you, whom if another hurt he 
need look for no mercy at my hands; the 
tortures of the lost would be too good for 
him. 

Later , — I emerged from my cell last night, 
and went down town to dine with a lot of 
men, intending to come home by ten, for I 
grudge every moment that I cannot give to 
thoughts of you. But there was much wild 
talk of literature, of art. What are these 
things to life ? And H. insisted on unfold- 
ing to L., to D., and the others, some dream 
he has of carrying the war into Philistia. 
So I did not come home till midnight — in a 
bad humor — vexed that so many hours were 
gone which I could have employed much 
better, and wondering, wondering what you 
were doing at that moment. You fool !” 
to myself I said, “ do you fancy that she 
thinks of you ? Thank your stars that she 
has not spurned you, that she did not tear 
the heart out of your body, in the fury of 
her wrath and scorn ! ” And so, grateful 
yet downcast, like a man reprieved from 
punishment, but doubtful whether the sun 
will ever again shine with the same warmth 


92 


HIS LETTERS 


— I came up to my bedroom. There on 
the table lay a telegram, “ Good-night ! 
The angels guard thee.” It was from you 
the whisper came. Did you not feel with 
that marvelous sixth sense what happened 
to me then ? Did you not see me cast my- 
self upon my bed, clasping your message in 
my hands, and thrusting it close to my 
heart ? Did you not hear me speak to you ? 
You must have heard, for in that vision it 
seemed to me that I had force enough to 
bound across the gulf that parted us. I 
found your room — I entered it — you were 
sleeping — one of your hands lay like a lily 
on the tender margins of your breast. The 
other hung trailing over the white edge of 
the couch. Ah, do you know why in your 
slumber you drew that pendent hand away 
with a pettish, fretful motion ? Because 
you felt my kiss upon its finger-tips. I was 
kneeling to kiss that which was so kind 
to me. 

Good-by, thou that hast the secret of 
being at once in two places, no matter how 
wide apart they be. 

This word I post now, to make sure of its 


HIS LETTERS 


93 


arrival before you leave. To-morrow I 
shall write again. Oh ! telegraph me that 
you are quite well. Don’t leave me in sus- 
pense about that also. 

Letter Twenty -ninth, 

I received your telegram of nine o’clock 
last evening. Bless you for sending it, 
though it was with a poignant mixture of 
feelings that I read it. Oh, you were ill all 
the way, and you are ill still ; and you do 
not revile and curse me for having offended! 
My God ! what shall I do ? You will not 
let me do the only thing that might a little 
revive my self-respect — accept with humble- 
ness the harshest, most galling thing that 
you could say to me. Kiss, ah, yes, I crave 
to kiss the foot that spurned me. You will 
not let me do anything, then, but loathe 
myself and worship you ? Oh, when you 
do these things, you set yourself so infinitely 
above all other human beings I dare not 
look up. It would be sacrilege to love a 
saint. I was all wrong, all wrong in the 
tenor of my dreaming about you. I see 
that in fashioning you nature hesitated 
7 


94 


HIS LETTERS 


long ; that her hand faltered, doubting 
whether she would make you a Venus or a 
Madonna. I know that you could be the 
one, and whether you could be the other I 
know not now, and I will never dare to 
guess. But, my adored one, since your 
heart can frame no conception of vengeance, 
except to bless them that smite you, let 
there be no limit to your mercy. Do this — 
too for me, do this. Tell me that you will 
burn, that you have burnt those two wicked 
letters that I sent to you that Thursday 
morning. If you keep them you will look 
at them again, and I shall know it, I shall 
know it by the sinking of my heart. For 
God’s sake, dearest, do this for me. Alas ! 
there is nothing, nothing, nothing I can do 
for you ; nothing to prove the agony of my 
repentance. 

Later . — Do you remember in one of 
your letters — oh, I have forgotten none of 
them ! though they are no longer here for 
me to kiss — do you remember bidding me 
pause and weigh the “ value, strength, and 
truth ” of the words I said to you ? Dear, 

I have weighed them, and they have no 


HIS LETTERS 


95 


Strength and no value. If I had the high 
virtues of Plato, and the quivering fingers 
of de Musset, I could not distinguish and 
unravel the myriad fairy threads of emo- 
tion, sympathy, and admiration that make 
up the cable of my love for you. My 
words hold nothing but the truth ; oh, they 
are true ! How could they be aught else ? 
They come not from the brain, but from the 
heart. You know that heart; you created 
it. You took a blank page and stamped it 
all over with your name. Why, I could not 
lie to you. I tried to in those two vile 
letters when I sought to prove that I did 
not care, I did not care. But I could 
deceive no one. The dullest eye in read- 
ing them would say, “ The man is wicked, 
mad, but yet — he loves her.” You say 
you, “ love the sun, the light, the air, all 
those lovely sky influences that make one 
healthier and higher.” Ah, you shall never 
again have aught else from me. 

I would that by my death I could make 
thee immortal. You needed not to tell me 
that never in your life have you had an 
envious or malicious thought. How could 


96 


HIS LETTERS 


you have ? Whom should you envy ? It 
is they who must look up who envy ; not 
she who, wherever her soft eyes turn, must 
needs look down. And where envy is not, 
how could malice find place ? It could not 
breathe in such an air. 

You say I do not know you. Alas, I 
know you but too well ! It is the perfection 
of my knowledge that racks me with those 
dreadful pangs of self-abasement and con- 
tempt. How could I dare to try to wound 
you ? Oh, I am a worm that strove to 
sting a god. 

Letter Thirtieth, 

Saturday. 

There are many things, dearest, that one 
realizes for the first time in his life when 
one is utterly possessed (in the Scriptural 
sense) by a great passion. One is the hor- 
ribly congealing and desiccating effect pro- 
duced by mere distance upon the written 
word. Now, if I were discoursing upon 
public affairs, if I were a diplomat sent 
to lie abroad for the good of my country, 
I should welcome the chill and aridity 


HIS LETTERS 


97 


which would choke and smother the last 
spark of impulsive human feeling. But 
fancy making warm love, hot love, at 
the distance of a thousand leagues! It is 
a contradiction in terms ; it is unthinkable. 
Poor Love, he is but a child, you know, 
and he takes cold and turns pale from too 
long exposure to the air. But Amor rep- 
resents only the earthly element in the fath- 
omless complexity of feelings that make 
a passion truly great. It is only he that 
absence has the least power upon ; and as it 
is he whose footsteps are tracked by the 
ghastly specters of doubt, jealousy, and self- 
ishness, perhaps the letter from which this 
mischief-maker is barred out will be all the 
more healthy and acceptable. 

But, really, it is curious, the effect of great 
distance on the pen. When she — oh, what 
a lovely word that is ! — when she, the one 
woman, is in the same town, when the very 
air you are inhaling may carry a trace of 
her sweet breath, when you know that in a 
trice a messenger can put a missive in her 
hand, why then you forget that writing is at 
best an artificial and roundabout mode of 


98 


HIS LETTERS 


expression ; and for the moment you can 
give it something of the gush, the fervor, 
and the sincerity of speech. But speech 
itself, ah, that is the noblest organ of the 
soul. How its tones haunt you, and what 
a thing it is to watch the birth of thought 
struggling into life and utterance upon the 
trembling lips! Heavens! What would 
your voice sound like if you spoke to one 
you really cared for ? I know, I feel that it 
is music, though I have never heard it ! — 
think of it ! There — I have written quite a 
little essay on the psychology of absence, 
and I don’t believe you are a bit grateful. 

Later . — I thank you, thank you for telling 
me how to reach you in M. Oh, if you had 
seen the wild search which on Thursday, 
after I got those six reproachful lines, I 
made for the card with the addresses, and 
the anguish with which I realized that it 
must be among the letters of which I made 
that hideous bonfire. Heavens ! suppose 
I had forgotten the address. For nearly 
two days, until I got last night the tele- 
gram, I shook with fear lest I had forgotten 
it — had somehow got it wrong. Think of 


HIS LETTERS 


99 


it; suppose that those three days had 
stretched into three weeks, and in the whole 
of that eternity I could not have spoken of 
my contrition or prayed you, prayed you to 
forgive. I must stop. I must go quickly 
and post these poor fond words of mine, if 
they are to go to-night and reach you, as I 
would have them, with all the speed attain- 
able by man. 

Letter Thirty-first, 

I have the first letter written from M., 
that noble letter in which you not once 
reproach me. Oh, you are my savior ! 
How can you be so good to me? And you 
knew what I wanted you to do with my bit 
of ribbon. You did not keep me waiting ; 
you did it at once, and sent it back to me. 
I have kissed it a hundred times in the last 
five minutes. It had lain on your bosom, 
close to the heart that I had hurt in my 
insanity, and which yet, which yet forgave. 
Ah, the runaway slave that in a burst of 
fury broke his fetters has come back of his 
own will. He has bowed his neck to a 
yoke more light, more sweet, more lovable 
L. of C. 


lOO 


HIS LETTERS 


than freedom. His collar is re-riveted, and 
he can shake it off no more. 

I will be more careful about my health, 
since you care in the least about it; but 
really, dear, I need no physician but you. 
If I could see you once I should have the 
health of Hercules. Before knowings you 
I know what was the matter with me ; I 
was literally dying of sheer emptiness of 
heart. It was killing me to mark that the 
starlit sky, a touching poem, the odors of 
flowers, the tones of music no longer had the 
power to throw me into a delicious trance. 
It seemed to me that the best part of me 
was already frozen, dead ; but oh, my love ! 
it has come back to me, you have brought 
it back. I can feel again the joy, the 
beauty, and the rapture of living. I want 
to live ; I could not die ! I am so much 
better than I was a month ago. It is as if 
some powerful elixir had been shot into my 
veins. 

But think what a dreadful thine it is to 
me, whom you have given a new life as truly 
as if you had raised me from the dead ; think 
what it is to learn, as I must learn from 


HIS LETTERS 


101 


your letters, that you are less happy for 
knowing me. I do not invigorate you, it 
seems, as you do me. I do not lift you up 
as you lift me. Oh, no ; O God, I drag you 
down ! What must I do, what shall I do ? 
I can’t help loving you, but I will obey you 
and seem calm. I must quickly master that 
hard lesson before I see you, for then I 
must be calm and even frosty, lest I hurt 
the delicate and shrinking petals of that 
rose, your heart. 

I would say. The angels guard thee ! but 
thou needest no celestial guardians. What 
needest thou of them ? ’Tis they should 
kneel to thee. 

L etter T hirty-second. 

I have your letter from M., and the post- 
script — the postscript which has made a god 
of me. But let me wait, let me wait a mo- 
ment, or I can speak of nothing else. 

I telegraphed you yesterday to answer 
my telegrams and not m}^ letters, because 
letters, sent from such a distance, are mis- 
leading. Yes, they have led me terribly 
astray. Listen, dear ; the letter which you 


102 


HIS LETTERS 


posted at M. did not reach me until five 
or six days afterward. Then my answer 
to it needed three days to reach you. By 
that time, just because you are as bewitch- 
ingly changeful as an April sky, you might 
have entirely forgotten the thought, the 
mood, the sideword of emotion to which I 
gave responsive, but, alas ! belated throbs. 
Oh, instinct told me, that evening before 
you went away, that there would be some- 
thing awful in the absence and the distance. 
Our cases, dear, were not at all the same. 
I have no anchor. You had, if you cared 
for it, for I loved you. You had my heart, 
and you knew it. Even when I raved 
against you in my agony I touched you, in- 
stead of angering, for your clear eyes read 
the truth. No passionette can make men 
rave. But I — why I-^-of your heart had no 
certainty at all. Ah, yes ; I might surprise 
your senses, pique them a little, make them 
curious to know more thoroughly a new, 
wild, morbid type. For I know well enough 
that few men can express themselves with 
more frightful vigor and infectious realism 
than I can, when I am roused. Well, to 


HIS LETTERS 103 

startle and command your senses would of 
itself be a triumph for which men have 
gladly died. But you see my aim was so 
much deeper, more comprehensive, more 
aspiring ! It was your heart I wanted ; for 
I divined, my own heart taught me, that if 
I but conquered that, all the other joys 
would be added unto me. It was not 
Lucifer, but Michael, the greatest of the 
good archangels, who took me up into a 
high mountain and showed me that. No 
mortal, he told me, who attacks a goddess 
by her senses only can long detain her on 
the earth. She has wings, and she will 
spread them ; and the last lot of her lover 
will be more infernal than the first. Her 
heart, her heart, make that but yours, and 
she will be seized with Aurora’s hunger to 
make you as herself, because she wished to 
love forever. 

Ah, I knew, I knew ; but what is knowl- 
edge when hope is weak and dim ? Then 
came that little letter with its wonderful 
commingling of sweet' and bitter, which at 
one instant drowned me in delirium and at 
the next shook me with horrible fore- 


104 


HIS LETTERS 


boding. It was not solely or mainly your 
frank avowal that you knew not whether 
I had your heart ; for it is just thinkable 
that a woman — even a very wise one — 
might have given her heart and not know 
it at once. No, it was not that, but some- 
thing which you went on to say, that to 
me was pregnant and portentous. You 
said, '‘To-morrow you may do or say or 
think something that will rob you of your 
power over me, and me of an illusion.” 
No one who cared in the least could have 
said that. No one who loved could. You 
could not do or say or think anything that 
would not straightway undergo transfigura- 
tion in my heart ; if in another not quite 
beautiful, your touch would beautify it, 
glorify ! Ah, a man who feels as I do 
understands why his great ancestor deemed 
even the plucking of that apple well done 
because Eve did it. Why, nothing she 
could do but ever to his fond eyes seemed 
wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best. But 
with you, it seemed, it was not so. You 
would see with cool and piercing clearness ; 
you would weigh and measure the thing 


HIS LETTERS 


105 

done. You would not see the one who did 
it, and every act of his, through the haze 
that love alone can generate. You could 
never guess, I fear, what anguish that sen- 
tence cost me, as I thought what dread- 
ful self-denial and long martyrdom the con- 
quest of your heart imposed. No one but 
you has ever made me weep — ah, no ! I 
have been one of those that ever with a 
steadfast temper have been able to take the 
sunshine and the storm. Yet even in the 
middle of my sorrow — hope is, thank God, 
so hard to kill — there came to me a flicker- 
ing faint gleam of hopefulness, as if — as if 
an infant’s finger had touched my breast. 
For I remember with what infinite sweet- 
ness and forbearance you have treated me 
in certain crises. Caprice knows no such 
magnanimity. Had it been a mere caprice 
you felt, oh, surely, you would have smitten 
me, consumed me with a lightning-stroke of 
wrath and scorn. Ah, then ; if not caprice, 
what was it ? What was it made you utter 
those arresting, agitating, paralyzing words ? 
Was it, could it be a lovely modesty that 
sought thus to throw up a last barrier ; that 


lo6 HIS LETTERS 

withdrew dismayed and fluttering, deep 
into its inmost keep ? For a great lady 
need not be ashamed of a caprice — but to 
admit that her heart has surrendered — ah, 
that is quite a different avowal. My queen, 
my queen, why do you ravish me with that 
avowal in the postscript of that letter which 
I have just opened ? Oh, do not bless me 
with one breath, only to reclaim the bless- 
ing presently. Don’t you see that if you 
love me, if you can give to me your heart, 
everything for me is wholly changed? No 
more misgiving ; it will be dead, and fear 
extinct. I could not, even for your sake, 
bar myself from you. I could not breathe 
apart from you. 

But even as I write this I am still torn 
with apprehension. Who knows what may 
have happened since you traced those 
lines? For here is Wednesday noon, and 
I have had no second word. Oh, think of 
my suspense! 


HIS LETTERS 


107 


Letter Thirty-third, 

You ought to prove a good physician, for 
you are wondrous learned in the lore of the 
heart. One might suppose that, at first 
sight, the worst way possible to calm a man 
already sufficiently excited — to give him 
something that had been pressed against 
your bosom. Yet it did calm me, and you 
knew it would. You knew that a man in 
my condition must have something to touch 
that had touched you. Your instinct told 
you by what strange cheatings the senses 
may be soothed and lulled. Or, it may be 
that you had noticed how, when an infant 
clamors for the breast he cannot have, they 
slip into his mouth a tiny bit of moistened 
rubber, and behold, he tugs away at it in 
dubious contentment, and whimpers off to 
sleep. 

I have only had one letter written from 
N. Don’t think I am complaining — I 
only mentioned it, so that you may know 
whether I received everything I should. I 
don’t want you to write very often, lest 


io8 


HIS LETTERS 


writing to me should become a sort of ball 
and chain. 

Much later , — I had just said that, and 
was trying to convince myself that I 
believed it, when someone brought me a 
very little envelope that bore your hand- 
writing. The eagerness with which I 
snatched it gave the lie to my protesta- 
tions ; but Heavens ! I marveled my hand 
did not drop off. That little envelope was 
charged with electricity enough to kill a 
dozen men ; it shook every nerve-cell to an 
agony of ecstasy, set every drop of blood in 
my body to bounding, swelling, bursting, in 
a mad desire to spill itself. 

It was the act of an angel to dispel my 
doubts forever. You knew that it could be 
done in one way only, and you took it. I 
believe, believe, and nothing can cloud my 
belief again. My God ! it is then possible. 
It is true that you care for me a little. Oh, 
there must be a God ; I have regained my 
faith in him. For it is not thinkable, not 
thinkable a child of earth should know such 
rapture. And, dearest, is there not some- 
thing indescribably ennobling in the fact 


HIS LETTERS 


109 

that you and I have been drawn together in 
this strangest of all ways ? 

I pity, don’t you, those dull, common 
creatures who suppose the eyes to be the 
only transparent windows of the soul, the 
soul’s sure channels to the heart ? Oh, we 
have found a passage shorter, straighter, 
more unerring, more delicious ; that 
through which Love himself leaped when 
he fell on Psyche in the dark. What a 
miracle it is that you can evoke devotion, 
worship, passion, merely by existing ; and 
what exquisite flattery to me it is that you 
should let me, with no other instrument 
than a pen, touch in return your proud, 
sweet heart. Why, this is the finest and 
most admirable thing in all the long history 
of lovers. I take back those gifts I made 
of you to those men, more happy in that 
posthumous blessing than ever they were in 
their lives. Not one of them shall have 
thee ; they could not love as well as I. 
Good-night ! That little letter lies like a 
red-hot coal now close to my heart, my 
darling. 


no 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Thirty -fourth. 

I did intend to write to you about 
your mind to-night, because I was deter- 
mined to invigorate ; but the postman has 
been here, and I have changed my mind. 

I follow still the changes of the moon. 
She draws the tides in woman’s mystic na- 
ture, and you draw me. I shall begin with 
the wrong end, the less lovely end of your 
longer letter. As for the little note, the 
only, only letter worthy of the name that 
ever in my life set my eyes to swimming, 
that I must keep to the last ; should I even 
think of it now, I should have to throw 
down this pen. 

I wonder that you don’t more often mis- 
understand my letters, that there are not 
more words left out or wrong ones slipped 
in, for I have never read over a single sen- 
tence, much less a paragraph, of what I 
have written to you ; it would seem shock- 
ing to me. When I am obscure, ah, you 
must guess me, darling ! I cannot help 
you. Guess, since you have the wisdom as 
well as the beauty of a goddess. 


HIS LETTERS 


III 


As for what you say about recognizing a 
perfume, it isn’t worthy of you. You will- 
fully misunderstand me. I had to speak of 
those other letters in order to explain the 
impression which yours made. Y ou ordered 
me to do so. It is not generous to impute 
to me a cheap and vulgar affectation. But, 
alas ! although a goddess, you are a woman, 
and I thank God you are. 

How could those people so misjudge you ? 
Would that I might build an altar fit for 
your white feet to rest upon. In all that I 
said to them there was not one word, not 
one phrase which I did not think to be the 
truth — ah, so much less than the truth — but 
less I had to say for your sake, my love, my 
love. If there is a cabal against you, it is 
that dog A. who has instigated it; I think 
I may well guess why. What joy I take in 
insulting him ! But your name I cannot 
hear without a flush. I had a proof only 
this morning that my power of self-control 
is strangely weak where you are concerned. 
As a rule I take off my collar, fearing to 
ruffle and rumple it as I lie tossing in my 
bed ; but last night I kept it on. I had 


1 12 


HIS LETTERS 


had distress enough that day, and I thought 
it would soothe me. This morning, when 
my man came to give me my bath, “You 
have a string, sir, round your neck,” he 
said. I felt, I know, that I got crimson, and 
I untied it in a hurry. Now, if I have no 
more self-command than this before a ser- 
vant, it behooves me to so act that nothing 
shall cloud the clearness and straightfor- 
wardness of my look. 

Good-by, good-by ! I thank you for the 
way you addressed this last letter. 

Letter Thirty -fifth. 

You say. in speaking of the “ Kreutzer 
Sonata,” “ I have read that terrible book. 
I do not shrink from acknowledging it. I 
have read it, and you are all wrong, all 
wrong. Why should an agonized confes- 
sion, wrung from the repentant murderer 
Posdnicheff — saved from death only by a 
quibble of the law — be the expression of the 
personal experience of that great moralist 
and poet, Tolstoi ? I am amazed at you. 
Why so misjudge him ? Could the author 
of * Anna Karenina’ not have known love. 


ms LETTERS 


I13 

yea and all things ? Why should an appeal 
for purity of morals in men before, nay, 
during marriage, so scandalize the world ? 
What hypocrisy! Tolstoi is a happy hus- 
band and a loving father. He has not 
chilled or killed his wife. This book paints 
coarse animal propensities, unrelieved by 
one spark of intellect, one gleam of high 
aspiration, in a life spent idly without regu- 
lar engrossing and healthful occupation — 
where could they lead unless to despair and 
to crime ? A frightful portraiture, but true 
— true. And if more probable in the Slav 
than in the Saxon temper, it is possible even 
here. Its warnings should be heeded.” 

I beg your pardon, I daresay you are 
right . . . but do such books reach their 
purposes ? Do they not rather produce de- 
pression and hopelessness in minds striving 
to uplift themselves? I know not. I can 
only say that it depressed me. Grave ques- 
tions these we will discuss anon. You say 
that, There is one mistake the great Rus- 
sian makes when he says that a pure young 
girl wants children — children, not a lover. 
This is not true ; a girl does not want chil- 


HIS LETTERS 


I14 

dreUy nor does she dislike the thought of 
them. That is all vague to her — a matter 
of indifference. What she does want is the 
lover, not the husband, the lover — that 
‘ homage of the dim boudoir,’ which so often 
marriage forfeits.” 

Yes, you are right — and also in what you 
say — that “ man, through his sensuality, 
makes woman his enemy, not his 
ally.” 

... Not even to spare you annoyance, or 
shield myself from your displeasure, could 
I ever tell you an untruth. Then I should 
feel even more utterly unworthy of a kind 
thought from you than I do now. I am 
not a good man. Heaven knows, but I can, 
at least, admire the paradise that a seraphic 
wisdom had made of Peru before the Span- 
iard spoiled it. You know, I dare say — you 
know everything — that the Incas framed a 
penal code of unparalleled simplicity. They 
began by decreeing the fundamental law, 
“ He that uttereth the thing that is not, 
shall surely be put to death.” After this 
law had been mercilessly enforced for gen- 
erations, they discovered that they needed 


HIS LETTERS 


115 

no other penal statutes. The lie extinct, all 
crime was dead. 

It was a tender heart that prompted you 
to ask me certain questions. Ah, you know 
how to chasten and purify the man that 
loves you. 

My mother ! How strange it is ! I sel- 
dom, very seldom, speak of her. I have 
not, until lately, thought of her so often as 
I ought. But it is sweet to speak of her to 
you. It is she that whispers to you when I 
am at my best, and throb responsive only to 
the noblest and best element of the com- 
plex, all-embracing feeling that you have 
kindled in my breast. 

At other times I think it is my father — 
and the far worse man* that life has made of 
me — whom you hear when you tell me that 
it is poison I distill. 

Ah, that was an ideal marriage ! No 
wonder that I have been chasing love’s 
counterfeits ; for, indeed, I was love’s child. 
I believe that two human beings never gave 
themselves to one another with such utter 
self-surrender ; and I was the first-born. 
He died young. She lingered for two 


Ii6 HIS LETTERS 

years, and then died at twenty-three. She 
had the face of a Madonna, and I know she 
had the soul of one ; for long afterward, 
when I was able to weep over them, I read 
some letters which she had kept during her 
short married life, and which, so long as 
she was living, no eye but hers had seen. 
Through the two years after she had lost 
him she was always praying, praying — he 
was not religious, he was more like me, but 
he loved her — that at last, in the hour of 
dissolution, her faith might become his. 
The poor soul shuddered at the thought 
that in the heaven she was bound to, she 
might seek him piteously, wildly, and not find. 

For me, too, she was always praying, for 
me ! But there is no God, no God that 
answereth a prayer. Yet I have thought 
that sometimes of late she has looked upon 
me with a smile, a smile sad and wistful as 
a tear ; but yet a smile, as she saw me once 
more yearning for things noble and things 
beautiful. 

Her ... I saw but once. So young I 
was that I can only remember seeing her 
that once ; that morning when my nurse 


HIS LETTERS 


117 

took me up to the darkened chamber, and 
drew down the white cloth shrouding the 
eyes now closed forever. And I screamed, 
and knew not why. Oh ! my tears are fall- 
ing on this paper. Take those, dear, take 
those ! . . . 

. . . Was I once heard to say that Myra 
was nicer than Gwendolen ? It must have 
been in a hopeless, disappointed mood, 
when it seemed to me that rather with 
those pale, soft-eyed seraphs than with the 
women that enslave would men find heaven’s 
peace. Ah, had I painted what you have 
painted, over and over again would I say to 
myself, “ Is it possible that I have done 
this ? ” 

Ah ! could I but have known you ten 
years ago, I might by this time have done 
something of which I should not feel 
ashamed. But it is not too late. I am ten 
years younger than Caesar was at Pharsalia, 
and not a day older than he was when he 
wept that as yet he had accomplished 
nothing. Just think ! he had done nothing 
but flirt with women and get into debt be- 
fore he was fifty. 


Ii8 HIS LETTERS 

Farewell ! beloved, forget me not, and 
remember that I only live in you. 

Letter Thirty -sixth. 

Let me set that proud and tender heart 
at rest forever on two points. Would that 
I could as easily clear my mind of a mis- 
giving which a little word you dropped 
once has caused to haunt me. Happily, 
I can set your heart at rest, beloved, without 
altering or veiling the truth by so much 
as a shade ; and I am so glad of that, for I 
want to keep your respect. 

I have never in my life had any letters — 
until I began to receive some in a certain 
handwriting — that I cared to read more 
than twice, and not one for years that I have 
read but once. But these others, oh, these 
others! There is not one of them that I 
have not read over a dozen times, and some 
a hundred times. What else could I do? 
There is no woman breathing, I think none 
ever breathed, who could write such letters. 
Heavens ! How much culture, wisdom, 
genius, poetry, romance is there commingled, 
by an unheard-of alchemy, with how much 


HIS LETTERS 


II9 

fire, vitality, and passion ! Oh, some of 
those letters would call a man back from 
the grave. “His heart would hear them 
and beat, were it earth in an earthy bed.” 
I thank God that through them I have 
known an angel’s visits, though they have 
been short, too short, and woe is me ! per- 
haps not meant to last. For you said once 
— I can forget nothing — that about your 
own constancy you had grave doubts. Of 
course you have, of course you have ; but 
what a dreadful thought for me ! But I 
must not dwell on that. Let me be happy 
for a little time. The night will come. 

And now listen, and believe while I an- 
swer the other question. It is true, as I 
once told you, that I never write letters. 
In twenty years I have not written so 
many letters as I have in the last few 
weeks. Even when I ought, in common 
gentleness and decency, I write but very 
little. But it was not so much of the quan- 
tity as of the kind of letters you were think- 
ing. On that score, too, you have no cause 
for doubt. When I said that sometimes I 
could express myself with vigor and infectious 


120 


HIS LETTERS 


realism, I was not thinking of letters at all. 
I had in mind certain attacks I had made 
on men. Ah, I can cut to the bone. But 
I never before wanted to use power to win 
and not to wound. Never in my life had I 
written one letter which I should care if all 
the world should see. I know not what 
prophetic instinct made me so reserved and 
frigid in my style. It is the same instinct 
that has always made me shrink from men- 
tioning so much as a lady’s name in talk 
with other men. And even of those that 
were not ladies I have never allowed myself 
to speak, except with reticence and a sem- 
blance of respect. Ah, the men who really 
know me could tell you a strange thing 
about me. I am not a bit better than 
others ; perhaps not half so good — you think 
not — and yet they would tell you that never 
was a coarse word heard to pass my lips ; 
and that no man ever ventured more than 
once to tell such stories as men sometimes 
tell, in my presence. But it is true, oh, it 
is true that when a man is utterly in love 
there is no such thing as impurity ; every- 
thing is beautiful, etherealized, glorified. 


HIS LETTERS 


121 


There is no mad dream of passion which 
does not seem worthy of a god. It is 
strange, is it not, that I should have kept 
always that outward purity and modesty ? 
You will understand the mournful contra- 
dictions of my life if you remember the 
scene I once revealed to you, when a poor 
little child of five, a little golden-haired boy, 
realized in one awful moment that he was 
cast helpless upon a brutal world. I was 
pitched into a boarding-school no worse 
than others — all are bad. Oh, don’t, don’t 
tell me I have lost something I never 
can regain ! Ah, many and many a sad 
night of late I have sobbed and sobbed and 
sobbed in anguish to think I was not better. 
Ah, take me, take me as I am ! There are 
still left in me some stirrings, yearnings, 
echoes of what I might have been, and 
what, alas ! you wish I was. 

Letter T hir ty-seventh. 

I do not believe to-night that I ever shall 
see you. How delighted you will be to kill 
my hope ! Well, I have your picture to com- 
fort me. You cannot rob me of that. It 


122 


HIS LETTERS 


has been a great/ comfort to me during the 
last few days. I am not so much afraid 
of the mouth and chin as I was at first. 
Nevertheless, I am in a sufficiently timorous 
and abject condition. 

Apropos of abject ness, I saw a photo- 
graph of the Czarina lately. The thought 
ran through my head, “ This mistress of 
all the Russias looks as if she too might 
have a slender foot, but she could never set 
it on my neck. That is pre-empted.” 

Has not a letter miscarried ? You speak 
of having inclosed in one something about 
your little dog. I have never received 
that. If you are quite certain that you 
sent it, will you not tell me when and how, 
whether by post or servant ; then I will 
investigate. 

Later, i a. m. — Ah, it is literally true 
that at this instant I arise from dreams of 
thee. 

I have wondered why I did not always 
dream of one, while sleeping, from whom, 
in my waking hours, I never can escape. 
Perhaps it was a blind, sullen effort of 
nature to relieve the heart and brain ; but 


HIS LETTERS 


123 


if SO, my will at last has subdued the inci- 
dent of reaction, and I trust that henceforth 
you will never be absent. 

I have read your letter of yesterday a 
hundred times. There is a part of it which 
grieves me the more the oftener I read it, 
but I will not reproach you ; I could not 
frame the words. I only say to myself 
sadly, '' Of how slow a growth is trustful- 
ness ! ” You see, dear, you began with a 
strong warp and decided bias against me, 
and since I will not lie to you — I would as 
soon think of lying to God — it is a hard and 
Sisyphean labor to conquer preconception 
and rehabilitate myself a little in your eyes. 
Alas, I may not even peep over a fence 
which others may jump over. That is a 
part of my punishment. 

What do I expect of a woman ? I don't 
expect anything of ''a” woman ; for experi- 
ence has taught me that I should be dis- 
appointed. But all that I could wish of 
one woman is that she should simply be 
herself, and that is you. 

You speak of Myra, you speak of De- 
ronda ; he never interested me, I cannot 


124 M/s LETTERS 

even understand him. He is a woman’s 
man. I say it not invidiously, but scarcely 
any of George Eliot’s men are vital. But 
about Myra ; she is the Madonna type. 
Of course she of Bethlehem was just such a 
Jewess. No man fit to live at all could fail 
to worship her ; but how could there possi- 
bly be any hunger in the worship? Not 
only would one be upon one’s knees, but 
the head would be dropped, not lifted. 
One would be content to know her with the 
ear, and not the eye. One would never 
feel a wild impulse to look up and let one’s 
gaze wander longer, fastened on her face or 
on her figure. 

Gwendolen ? a hundredfold more human 
and therefore more lovable. That sweet 
passion was invented to glorify poor human 
clay. I despise Deronda for not loving 
her. What was he made of ? Marble ? 
Snow ? Great Heavens ! couldn’t the man’s 
soul find scope and spur enough for vibra- 
tion and expansion in her contrition, aspira- 
tion, agony, despair? And was she not 
fair to see, and is that nothing, nothing to 
a man ? 


HIS LETTERS 


125 


But, ah ! that searching, piercing ques- 
tion that you put to me in that same letter ! 
'' Was it with my heart or my intellect that 
I revered nobility and exaltedness ? ” Oh, 
it is miraculous that a woman should be 
able to sink a shaft like that down to the 
roots of a man’s nature. Ah, how some 
people must dread your eyes ! I fear them 
not. Let them plunge in me as deep as 
ever plummet sounded, and they can dis- 
cover nothing but love, dear — love for you. 
That question — it made me probe and ran- 
sack myself as nothing in my life had done. 
Could I have had such shaking, stimulating 
questions put to me ten years ago, I would 
by this time have achieved something de- 
serving your respect. Even though I have 
pondered it long and anxiously, I have not 
yet managed to answer it ; but I will find 
the answer, and you shall have it, no 
matter how it may damage me in your 
esteem. There is nothing could damage 
me irreparably in my own eyes but to de- 
ceive you. 

Now I am going to lie down again and 
take your last letter, oh, my beloved, 
0 


126 


HIS LETTERS 


sweetest, dearest darling, with me. Good- 
night ! 

Later. — Oh, there was another passage 
in that letter which ravished me, plunged 
me in a frenzy. Tell me, tell me, did you 
also intend that? You must mean what 
you accomplish. Your touch is too sure, 
too infallible, too resistless not to be 
meant. My God, how can one of thy 
creatures have such stupendous power over 
another ? Why, with a word, an image, a 
vision evoked on paper, you can do more 
with men than Argive Helen could with 
her embraces. 

I didn’t mean to rave again like this. I 
will be invigorating. I shall write you to- 
morrow only about your talent. 

Letter Thirty-eighth. 

Of course I shall come. I could not dis- 
obey you, but I would if I could ; for think 
what you have said, “We must not meet 
often.” How, then, am I to live? How 
can people say such things ? I could not. 
Ah, can you not see, for a man with such a 
heart as mine, to see you once and scarcely 


HIS LETTERS 


127 


any more would be death ? I some- 
times wonder how God measures us mor- 
tals, and whether, looking down, he does 
not think me too good for any woman. 
Believe me, his rules of judgment must be 
different from ours. I shall seem cold be- 
cause I am a little afraid of you. Yes, you 
divined it ; but that is just the reason why 
I must go. A man must do the things he 
is afraid of. Oh, you hurt me when you 
tell me that I am so poor a masker that 
even fools would see what I feel. I 
thought myself so skillful. I am ashamed, 
ashamed. I fear to harm you. Oh, I don’t 
want to go and see you — I don’t — I don’t — ' 
but I must. 


CHAPTER II. 

I T was some fatality that took me to her 
house on that very afternoon, and I know 
it was an accident by which I was admitted. 
Someone evidently was expected ; but I 
felt, as men of some experience feel, instinc- 
tively — men who know something of femi- 
nine intricacies — that it was not I. As I 
ascended the stairs I heard the butler whis- 
per a word of reproof to the footman in the 
hall, and the little dog, who sat on one leg 
warming his nose by the fire, snapped and 
growled in sympathetic reprobation. 

I noticed, too, that the hand which I 
raised to my lips on entering was a trifle 
cold. Her graceful back was reflected in 
the looking-glass, with the coil of her dusky 
hair. She moved forward a step or two to 
^reet me in her suave accents. 

There was always something peculiar 
about her voice, something which suggested 
128 


HIS LETTERS 


129 


nature — nature as one feels her influences 
in the drowsy hum of insects on summer 
nights, in the twitter of birds in the leaves, 
in the beating assonance of waves on the 
shore, the flutter in the glad meadows, the 
gayety of sunlit fields. There were grave 
notes and measured ones, and then sudden 
vibrations, as of the gurgling kamichi in the 
forest branches, at the time of its love mak- 
ing. A sweet, low voice,” people said, 
speaking of her. Insufficient adjectives ! 

She seated herself on the sofa, and I 
found a chair near to her. We fell to talk- 
ing of common things — of the world, its 
obligations, its exactions. I told her I was 
deputed to organize a party on winter 
pleasures bent, which I hoped that she 
would honor us by joining. We were to 
pass a few days for the carnival at Mon- 
treal ; thence wing a rapid flight through 
Canada’s frozen plains to the coast. 

Ah, yes ; Mrs. Heathcote invited me, but 
I don’t know what is the matter, I have an 
ungregarious fit on, Mr. Milburn.” 

“ Is it the detaining brush ? ” 

“ Not a bit. I am doing nothing at my 


130 HIS LETTERS 

work now, nothing. No; who knows? 
Perhaps I am indolent, or perhaps I am 
falling in love ? ” She posed this as a ques- 
tion, with an ascending inflection, arrested 
on her lip. 

“ I don’t believe a word of it. Mrs. 
Heathcote herself is not more impreg- 
nable.” 

“ Ah, dear Antoinette, she is not the 
creature the world thinks her ! And you 
have the Greshams, too, nest-ce pas ? Who 
is the fair Constance destroying now? I 
hear, however, she is reforming. And 
Norah Eustis — Horace is in the West I 
think — will she be one of you ? Take care, 
Mr. Milburn ; if Constance is veiling her 
lovely eyes I believe Norah’s are opening 
of late.” 

So Mrs. Maury was telling me.” 

"‘Ah, Nelly, your cousin. There’s chic 
for you ! I adore Nelly. She has been 
beating at my door for a fortnight, and I 
have denied myself. I am afraid of Nelly. 
There is no resisting the creature. If I 
had opened to her, I would have been halb 
way to Canada already.” 


HIS LETTERS 


131 

“ Well, why not ? ” 

“ Why not ? Why not ? Why, I ask 
you, and for all answer you say I am im- 
pregnable.” 

“ Ah, yes, and impenetrable, as you women 
must be whom the world treats well. Why 
should you be aught else, pray, but amiable 
and calm ? Nelly is another, not much like 
you, though. Nelly’s ideas of art would be 
the Trianon and marble fountains and the 
matter of a Watteau frock or two ; while 
one feels that your watchwords, Mrs. Mon- 
crief, would be nature and passion.” 

“Ah! I like that I Thank you. Yes, I 
can well fancy that Mrs. Maury’s and my 
artistic convictions would differ. But so 
few of us can follow out our own ideas. 
Balked individuality leads to revolt. I am 
a rdvoltiey She sighed. 

“You are a success.” 

“ Yet the prudes will have none of me. 
They were shocked at my last study of the 
dancing nymph. Do you remember it ? 

“ That poem — yes. Prudes ! Do you 
fancy that their tirades lie in the province 
of ethics, as they claim ? Depend upon it, 


132 


HIS LETTERS 


hysteria is their disease. They foam at 
the mouth because some women are lov- 
able and men tell them so. It is a pill that 
should be administered to them, not a lec- 
ture. Why, they don’t know the depth of 
their wound until a careless finger has 
probed it. Depend upon it, the prudes are 
recruited from the ranks of the unloved.” 

She laughed. '' I believe you must be 
right ; I have sometimes thought so. So 
you recommend me to go on my own 
way ? ” 

“ Why, of course, since this means not 
only peace and health and progress, but as- 
cent.” Through all this persiflage I had 
remarked a note of febrile agitation, and 
the frequent movement of a pretty head 
toward a curtained doorway. The por- 
tiere stirred ; the butler’s burly visage ap- 
peared between its folds. ‘'Mr. Thornton,” 
he announced. 

She turned to me, “We have not 
met before, you know,” she said. “You 
must present your friend.” And I believed 
her although it puzzled me, for I fancied 
that her bosom rose and fell too quickly 


MIS LETTERS 


133 


where the roses were, and that these paled 
a little near her heart. 

I can see her now, standing to receive 
him, by the side of a great pot of tall lilies. 
The flowers almost shielded her from the 
glance of the newcomer. Never had I seen 
her so womanly before. For there were 
those who accused her brilliancy of cold- 
ness. Upon me Mrs. Moncrief had never 
made an impression of coldness, only of 
being a little weary — weary of the emotions 
she inspired, of that hot breath, as of the 
desert, which had always surrounded her 
steps, stirring in her more lassitude than an- 
swering emotion. If evil had brushed that 
pure forehead, it had left little trace. And 
the depths her eyes revealed — whose study 
might become perilous — told no story of 
her own past. Yet a man would fain have 
read their mysteries, even if it brought to 
him but hopelessness. 

Thornton came in quickly, with the move- 
ment of one who should fall at a woman’s 
feet, but, seeing me, he paused an instant, 
as if discomfited or embarrassed. She ad- 
vanced and they touched each other s fin- 


134 


HIS LETTERS 


gers — no more. I looked from her to him. 
He had entered with a smile upon his face, 
but now I saw it change, and in its stead 
there swept an expression of distress and 
of anxiety. He seemed to seek in her 
some assurance which he found not, the 
crowning of some hope long nursed, cruelly 
denied. 

'‘Would Galatea remain upon her pedes- 
tal forever, while he gazed up at her ? ” I 
asked myself this question, lingering. I 
knew I ought to go, I saw it ; yet, in my 
role of student of humanity, am I to blame 
if I stopped a minute, while these two be- 
ings of such high instincts, such rare intelli- 
gence, looked at and gauged each other. 
" How captivating it would be ! I thought, 
" should he become the master of what is 
highest in this woman? what proud conquest 
would he make of this strange soul of hers ! 
Would he not win her by surprising her ? 
and should he possess that wayward spirit, 
would he not leave his mark upon it ? make 
it his forever ? ” 

And then I took pity upon him — upon 
them both. I looked up my hat and cane 


HIS LETTERS 


135 


and said “ Good-night.” They did not bid 
me stay. I left them thus, together and 
alone. 


Letter Thirty -Ninth, 

Wednesday Night. 

I don’t know what to think; I am torn 
asunder. Sometimes I am ravished with 
delight when I look at that little handker- 
chief, when I seize it, kiss it, crush it 
against my face, inhale its scent, which is sc 
strangely new and deadly sweet to me. 
And is it true that I have touched that 
flowerlike thing, your hand, my goddess 
and my queen ? seen you at last ! in all 
your splendor and your beauty ! But the 
earth-born are insensate. I fell to thinking 
of what you would not give, of what you 
would not do ; and then I dropped at once 
from the fifth — no, the seventh heaven — 
down to the depths of misery. For I saw, 
oh yes, I saw too plainly that it was but my 
mind you liked ; that you — when you had 
taken a searching look at me — and your 
looks were searching although swift — that 


HIS LETTERS 


136 

you were disappointed. And you said, “ I 
would rather he should write to me than see 
him.” Ah, yes ; you did say that to your 
kind heart. Ah, you may like my intellect 
a little, but you find that you can’t like me. 
Yes, that is what you mean. Alas, how can 
you ? I do not blame you in the least. 
And so I was too nice to tell you what 
I remembered, that a lovely lady had said 
to me, that she would, when she saw 
me, touch my forehead with her hand. 
You would have been near me then, I 
would have drunk your breath. . . It 
was a dream, but give me such dreams 
above all realities, such realities as I yet 
have known. But I love you a hundred 
times more than I did yesterday, since I 
have seen you. Oh, what a dreadful fate 
that is, to love you more ! When I left 
you I could not come home. There was 
something too commonplace about the 
associations of my house. I told the man 
who was driving me to take me up the 
river. I sat for hours gazing out upon the 
water, thinking of you, trying to puzzle out 
the secret of your sweet ways; but I can’t, 


HIS LETTERS 


137 


you are too enchantingly deep for me. 
The Sphinx will slay me, I foresee it. 

When am I to see you again ? May I 
come ? Say that I may ; but when, when, 
when, when ? And then, for God’s sake be 
alone. 

Yours, 

H. T. 


Letter Fortieth, 

Sunday, Midnight. 

I went to bed at eight o’clock this 
evening ; think of it ! And I have just 
wakened from a deep, refreshing sleep. 
Ah, you are indeed a wonderful physician. 
When I recall the horrible restlessness and 
wakefulness of the last week, when every 
nerve would quiver with anxiety and suffer- 
ing, such happy slumber seems incredible. 
How wondrous, how awful, when one thinks 
of it, is the part the spirit plays in the life 
of man. Between us it has been all. It 
has needed but one soft touch on your part 
— no, the word is not sufficiently aerial — 
but a breath, a thought, a gentle impulse 
to work a revolution in the whole being of 


138 HIS LETTERS 

another. Oh, how could you wrong your- 
self by saying once that you were not 
“ very gentle ” ? Why, you are an angel of 
compassion. 

That I could not sleep much Saturday 
night, though I had that precious letter 
under my pillow, seems a strange contra- 
diction. I was in a blissful swoon all that 
afternoon. You had stooped suddenly 
from heaven, and whispered something that 
was like — oh, it was like a kiss. But Satur- 
day night, what with reading over passages 
in some of your letters, over and over and 
over again — to reassure myself that my 
eyes had not mocked me, and that the 
words were really there — and what with 
writing to you, and, all at once, thinking of 
your beauty — something wrought me up to 
a terrible excitement, and I lay awake for 
hours in the dark, shivering an-d staring. 
But to-day and to-night I have felt a 
strange and delicious peace. Yes, love 
indeed has his languors as well as his rap- 
tures, and I know not which is the more 
blissful. Oh, dearest, dearest, dearest, in 
how many ways I love you ! There are 


HIS LETTERS 


139 


times when I worship you as if you were a 
saint, and to me you are a saint. There 
are others when I seem able to feel noth- 
ing but a wild hunger to see your face, to 
hear your voice, to touch your hand. I 
know not which mood be sweeter. They 
are both divine. 

What was the impression made on me 
by your first letter, the very first that came 
to me last summer ? You see I do not 
ne^ to keep your letters to remember 
every question. It was not because I 
feared to forget a word of them that I 
grieved so over their ashes, 4ast Friday 
night. It was because I used to like to 
gaze at your handwriting, and wonder how 
you looked when you wrote this or that ; 
whether a faint smile wreathed your lips, or 
your brows were curved in a soft frown. 
And then it sometimes seemed, when I 
pressed the pages in my hands, that you 
could somehow feel the pressure. But that 
letter ! Ah, there are strange presenti- 
ments. I remember well the day I found 
it perched upon a pile of books. There 
was a tinge in it that coaxed the eye ; the 


140 


HIS LETTERS 


lightest suggestion of a scent that I liked 
but did not recognize. I scanned the 
superscription ; you know I had not seen 
your handwriting then. I had not dreamed 
that you would answer my little note. 
This, I thought, is the letter of a woman of 
refinement. I tore it open and glanced 
swiftly at the signature. “ Ah,” I said, “ it 
is she ! ” How I had thought about you ! 
wondered ! how I thought and wondered 
now ! “ Let me see,” I said, 'Tiow much I 

can divine from this note ; how much her 
paint-brush has not taught me. With all 
their art they are not quite so inscrutable 
as men can be.” 

Your face I had pictured to myself. 
Don’t smile ; your height baffled me. 
Were you tall? I detest short women. 
Ah, you are tall, divinely tall. I probed 
and weighed your every syllable, pored 
over this little note, and then took up my 
pen and wrote the stiffest and coldest reply 
that I could frame. 

Is it possible this can interest you ? It 
is full of interest to me. But you did not 
guess I could talk so long, I fear, in answer 


HIS LETTERS 


141 

to your careless question. Some other 
time I will tell you when you first wounded 
me ; I see now that you meant not to 
wound, but you did. 

Later . — Your letter has come. There 
are things in it I cannot speak of — I have 
become a slave — you can say anything in- 
sulting, cruel to me now. I can never 
answer back any more, never say a word in 
protest or defense. I am almost glad to 
have you bruise me. To bear without 
wince or outcry seems the only thing that 
I can do for you. And when you are un- 
just I feel not quite so downcast, so heart- 
stricken at my unworthiness. I say with a 
sad joy, “ She is not perfect ! 

I would never tell her that I doubted, 
though I have a hundred times more cause, 
and though God knows my soul is shaken 
and sick with doubt. Let me speak no 
other word of that ; no, nor about another 
thing — your going away. My heart would 
burst. Ah, let me be as those condemned 
ones in the land Cortez won. They who 
meant to slay them never told them the 
day they were to die. They honored them 

10 


142 


HIS LETTERS 


meanwhile, and feasted them, and bade 
them mark, in their wild revelry, how blithe 
is earthly life. 

Must I tell you in so many words what 
you know, and I have said a thousand times, 
that I have long been discouraged, disillu- 
sioned and lonely with a loneliness that 
appalls and freezes like the tomb ? But 
let me say no more. . . The past is past. 
Here is the present ; the present, when I 
know only that I love you, love you, love 
you — Ah, does the word enter your heart 
as it empties mine ? love you with every 
fiber of my body, every outflash of my in- 
tellect, every pulsation of my soul. 

Will I go to you anywhere where I may 
see you, speak to you, and perhaps clasp 
your hand? Do you ask it ? Do you ask 
me whether I will go to Paradise ? 

Letter Forty-first. 

My Dear Madame : 

With your gracious permission, I will 
forego the pleasure of seeing you to- 
morrow, or at any time hereafter. I per- 
ceive that I made a profound mistake when 


HIS LETTERS 


143 


I urged you to see me. I should have 
been content to do what no intelligent and 
right-minded man could fail to do — admire 
your intellect and appreciate your heart. 
I will confine myself hereafter to these 
methods of regarding you ; but they are of 
course incompatible with the gratification 
of the sense of sight. I have been for 
some hours reflecting on certain incidents, 
and it is really curious how near I can 
come to the truth, when I take the trouble 
to think long and deeply. I am very far 
from asserting that your senses would 
never be stirred nor your passions inflamed 
beyond the point of complete and utterly 
exemplary control. I am quite too well- 
trained a logician to base a conclusion on a 
particular experience. Because I could 
not make you love me as women love 
when they really love, it does not in the 
least follow that another may not. That 
other I certainly should consider highly 
enviable ; but as envy is a feeling uncon- 
genial to my nature, I shall endeavor to 
extirpate it with all possible promptitude. 

I hope that in a few days, or in a week 


144 


HIS LETTERS 


at furthest, you will allow me to write to 
you on topics entirely unconnected with 
any personal, selfish desires of mine. It 
will take a little time to entirely tranquil- 
lize, clarify, and cool my mind. I have 
heard of you as a woman who had made 
many conquests, who had great knowledge 
of the human heart. I congratulate you. 
You are entirely at liberty to count me 
among the former ; but kindly place me in 
the sub-class that considered conquest suffi- 
cient, and rebelled against torture. 

I will never — so help me God! — look 
upon your face again. You will be wholly 
free for the future from my importunities. 

Believe me, dear madame, with unshak- 
able respect and admiration, and — if you will 
permit me to add — unvarying friendship, 
Sincerely yours, 

Hubert Thornton. 

Letter Forty-seco^id. 

Do not expect me, neither to-day nor 
any other time. Although you seem in- 
credulous, my letter expressed a deliberate 
and inflexible resolve. 


HIS LETTERS 145 

I pray you will not misunderstand me. 
I have arraigned myself in the forum of my 
own judgment. I have passed sentence on 
myself and it will be executed. Two or 
three times in my life I have had occasion 
to look suddenly and with great closeness 
at a situation, and tell myself what it 
behooved me to do, if I desired to re- 
tain my self-respect. My will has not, 
as some persons might imagine, lost its 
grip, and I have always been able to do 
what I saw I ought to do to escape self- 
contempt. 

I agree with all wise people in desiring 
to lead a dignified life. I perceive that I 
should inevitably become ridiculous. I pre- 
fer to retire to safe ground. There is one 
stage upon which I positively have made my 
last appearance. I am paying you a great 
compliment. I know I am, however you may 
regard it, whether with amusement, or with 
annoyance at seeing the fly escape the 
spider ; for when I renounce the hope of 
being loved by you I shall continue the 
most loyal and indefatigable of friends. 
Of this you will get by and by convincing 


146 


HIS LETTERS 


proof. That was the relation which, if I 
mistake not, you have always preferred ; 
and there is no doubt that it is the most 
sane, the most wholesome, and perhaps 
most profitable to both. . . If you wish 
me to speak to L. I will certainly do so. 
If you dread his tongue it is enough. But 
as for me, really I love to hear the buzzing 
of an enemy ; it is music in my ear. I 
have several times in my life had cause to 
say with Othello, when they told him that 
Brabantio and all of Desdemonds relatives 
were about to arraign him before the 
Council of Ten : 

Let them do their spite : 
My services which I will do the seigniory 
Shall out-tongue their complaint. 

Poor L. He is no Brabantio, for 
Brabantio was a senator ; but since you 
wish it I will say something to him. I will 
ask him to dine. 

With an homage profounder than I feel 
for any human being, and with the most 
devoted and unshakable friendship, believe 
me, dear lady. 


Sincerely yours. 


HIS LETTERS 


147 


Letter Forty-third, 

Of course my feeling has never wavered. 
It is burnt into my heart, soul, and body. 
It will live with me, but not die with me. 

I know not how you could have misun- 
derstood, but you are the noblest woman 
that ever lived, the purest and the no- 
blest. I thank you for your infinite com- 
passion ... I sent the handkerchief back 
because you said farewell forever, and I 
have always told you that a word from you 
would suffice. 

You have saved me ; oh thank you, thank 
you ! You little know my heart — Make L. 
show you a letter which I wrote to him an 
hour ago. Even under sentence of per- 
petual exile I have but one thought, to 
serve you. I was faithful — why not? We 
need must love the highest when we see it. 

Letter Forty-fourth, 

Dearest, dearest, I am coming at nine 
o’clock. I cannot write another word. Oh, 
I thank you, thank you for the flowers. I 
understood them. Are they not a sum- 
mons ? 


148 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Forty-fifth, 

I had gone out this morning to try and 
find a few poor violets, I wanted to send 
you something, for I simply could not write. 
When I came home I found your note ; and 
now I must write, I feel such a brute. I 
will never, never say an ungentle word to 
you again. When I wrote that last word I 
was mad with disappointment, I had fallen 
into great despair. I wonder will you un- 
derstand exactly what my feelings were ; 
for sometimes you seem to know what I am 
feeling before I speak, and you write under 
precisely the same impulse. It is as if a 
thought could scarcely take shape in my 
mind without its fellow thought being born 
in yours. Had you been a little kinder to 
me on Wednesday, I should not have had 
that dreadful sinking of the heart yester- 
day. You had been kind, but not half so 
kind as you had said you would be. Ah, I 
know it is not nice to remind you of those 
sweet words of yours — I only do it to ex- 
plain myself — I never will admit that I re- 
member them again — but compared with 


HIS LETTERS 


149 


them you were cold ; don’t you think you 
were? And to what could I ascribe the 
refrigeration except to your having been 
disappointed when you looked at me and 
compared me with the man who wrote you 
the letters which you had sweetly said you 
liked ? I cannot be surprised at it. But it 
is a terribly bitter thing to me, who found 
you a thousand times more fascinating, 
more maddening than I had thought or 
dreamed you. . . . Well, with these mis- 
givings racking me, shall you be angry if I 
tell you that I asked myself whether your 
indisposition was not feigned to enable you 
to adjourn indefinitely a meeting for which 
you found you cared but little? You 
had looked to me the very goddess of 
health. Your scarlet lips were like twin 
flames, and your eyes positively radiated ; 
and though, of course, my intellect did not 
for a second dispute that now you were ill, 
my heart could not avoid a faint shiver of 
distrust. Ah, as you once said so truly, 
affection is one thing and love is quite an- 
other. Distrust, doubt, suspicion, restless- 
ness, are the inseparable symptoms of the 


HIS LETTERS 


150 

real malady ; a malady indeed it is, a mal- 
ady for which there is no remedy. Posses- 
sion is a palliation of its deepest miseries, 
perhaps, then, it may be that one would 
have complete faith — just for a little while 
— but the torture would begin again. Tor- 
ture ! Yes ! but terrible as I find it, I would 
rather feel it than any so-called pleasure 
that another human being could bestow. 

Letter Forty-sixth. 

After Midnight. 

I did not think I could love you better 
than I did, and yet, since our explanation 
this afternoon, I do. Heavens ! no man 
ever loved a woman as much as I love you. 
No one could, because there never was such 
a woman. I have read history, as very few 
have read it, to find the women in it. That 
is why it is interesting to hear me talk his- 
tory. That is why you feel blood and life 
in it. And I know there has never lived a 
woman like you. 

After leaving you, I had to drive out to 
the country. Whenever I have been happy 
near you, I crave motion, air, a wide hori- 


HIS LETTERS 


151 

zon, the things that eagles have. And 
when I came home, I shut myself up and 
pulled out your portrait, and I gloated over 
it. Oh, the thought that this magnificent 
creature, this radiant goddess actually 
should care for me a little, filled me with 
such intoxication that I almost lost my 
reason. . . . Say it again to me, darling, say 
it again ! Plunge me into ecstasy ... I 
have been dreaming of you such sweet 
dreams ! We were wandering in some lotus 
land of enchantment, where all things spoke 
of love and summer. Ah, I loved you . . . 
Yes, your talents are virile, they are, in- 
deed ; but all the rest, your heart and 
body, is so intensely witchingly, madden- 
ingly feminine. You exhale love ; you are 
a flower. I should think that all little birds 
and lovely insects, like butterflies, must cir- 
cle round you in the spring-time. 

In what new dress, in what new guise 
will she meet me to-morrow ? I know not — 
I may not recognize her at first, but surely 
I shall say, ‘‘ This is some daughter of Zeus 
that blazes thus upon my vision ! ” 

A demain, peerless one. 


152 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Forty-Seventh, 

At Night, 2.30. 

I have not slept. I have got up to speak 
to you. I can find only this scrap of paper 
and no pen. How lovely you looked to- 
day ! the loveliest woman upon the earth to 
me. And what a voice you have, and what 
airiness, grace, sweetness of speech. Ah, if 
I were blind I must have loved you. Yet I 
have never puzzled myself with seeking to 
discover the secret of your strange power 
over me. I am satisfied to feel it ; I don’t 
want to know. The very thought of trying 
to analyze you is shocking to me. It would 
seem sacrilegious. I would not exchange 
one little word from you, no, nor your 
littlest finger, for all that the next loveliest 
could say or give. I simply love you, love 
you. You make me understand all the 
foolish, beautiful, impossible, preposterous 
things that men have done for love. I com- 
prehend human life as it is and will be so 
incomparably better for knowing you. You 
might cast me off to-morrow, as I dare say 
you will, and I should still feel myself 


HIS LETTERS 


153 


deeply grateful to you for the thoughts and 
emotions and wishes that you have evoked. 
Whatever happens I shall never be the 
same man hereafter that I was before. You 
have made me think better, not only of all 
womankind, but of the whole human race. 
God bless you ! 

Later . — You were eit beauti to-day ; you 
knew it. You will be resplendent at the 
ball, and alas ! I shall not see you. 

Listen, dearest, you believe, do you not, 
for you have told me so, that I am free from 
little egotisms. Well, if you do think that, 
why is it — don’t be illogical — why is it 
that you can’t believe me capable of un- 
selfish love ? I am capable, and I will 
prove it to you some day, if you drive me 
to it by those doubts that kill me. What 
a fate is mine ! never to have known love 
until now, and now not to be believed. 
Try to have faith in me ; you will not 
be sorry. Remember you have no right 
to think of anything but the present and 
the future. Good-by ! but it shall be only, 
shall it not, for a little while? In this 
letter I send you my whole heart. Oh 


154 


HIS LETTERS 


do not tear it up and throw it into the 
street. 


Letter Forty- Eighth, 

You will have torn up my last letter. I 
know it does not exist now. Yet I meant 
to write gently ; I did, I think, but coldly. 

A man cannot refresh anguish without 
ice. I think it was rather noble not to tell 
you that I was literally plunged into 
despair. I am ashamed, ashamed to / 

acknowledge that of late, during the last six 
or eight weeks, I have searched feverishly 
the papers, in the hope that I might see 
your name. You know what I saw yester- 
day. . . . Let me tell you that I tasted the 
agony of death. I could not breathe at all. 

I rushed into the open air, and walked 
miles, trying to collect my senses. You 
had told me one thing, and here I saw 
recorded another. O God ! ” I thought, 

there is no such thing as truth upon this 
earth. There is no woman in the world, 
not one, in whom a man can put his faith. 

I was right when I said that morally there 
was not one nice enough for me.” I was 


HIS LETTERS 


155 


glad that I was going to be free for a few 
days from what seemed a dreadful, shame- 
ful thralldom. 

That absence which I had looked forward 
to with a sinking heart seemed to offer a 
hope of a short escape, a short release. 

Ah, let me tell you that the very founda- 
tions of the earth seemed to have given 
way. “How can I,” I cried, “love a woman 
who would do that ? ” And yet I knew I 
did love her ; that bruise my hands against 
my chain as I might, I could never, never, 
never rend it off. 

The tears gushed from my eyes. It 
seemed to me that even my manhood was 
gone, my pride, the only prop I had, was 
lost. 

But look, I had the strength to tell you 
not a syllable of this. I never would have 
told you, did I not know to-day that the 
man or woman who penned that story lied. 
Oh, yes, he lied ; you tell me so, and I must 
always believe you. May God leave me 
this little gleam of trust. When I cease to 
believe you I shall be that awful wreck — a 
man who cannot help loving one whom he 


HIS LETTERS 


156 

cannot respect. You will not chide or 
blame me, I think, now that I have told 
you all. 

It breaks my heart to think of you as 
ill ; you who are always the embodiment 
and the picture of pure health. Oh, dear- 
est, darling, eat something for my sake. 
Drink the milk your physician orders ; get 
well, get well quickly, for my sake. I com- 
mand it ! You will, you can do it, for in so 
exquisitely organized a being the soul can 
well command the body. Say to yourself, 
“ He loves me, and he wishes it ; I will get 
well ; I am well.” 

Letter Forty-nine, 

Of course I want to see every line in 
which your name is mentioned ; even if I 
do not always like the substance of what 
you send me. But I cannot say that I 
revel in this incident. Yet I love the de- 
licious womanly nature that prompted you 
to send it. Oh, what an exquisite piece of 
femininity you are ! There never was any- 
thing so sweetly, so beguilingly, so entranc- 
ingly feminine as you are in heart, soul, and 


HIS LETTERS 


157 

body, in your instincts and impulses, in gait 
and gesture, in all your looks and ways and 
thoughts and feelings. Oh, you were made 
to bless the man whom you should deign 
to care for ! Cleopatra, Marie Stuart, Mar- 
guerite de Valois were kitchen maids to you. 
The man whom the splendid Heloise lets her 
deep eyes dwell upon may well be mad with 
pride as well as love. I am devoured with 
both passions. Don’t you wish it to be so ? 
But perhaps you don’t. Perhaps you would 
rather have me answer your questions. 
Let me try then, dearest, to please you in 
that way. 

George Meredith’s style ? His style is 
simple and lucid enough in dialogue, and it 
used to be in narrative when, in 1858, he 
published his first story, “ Evan Harring- 
ton.” But since, and more and more, when- 
ever he speaks in his own person, he has 
chosen to be gnarled, occult, inscrutable, 
oracular ; and naturally, readers are an- 
noyed, as they are in the case of Browning, 
to find that the kernel really is not worth 
the difficulty of cracking the shell. When 
one comes to think of it, who is Meredith 


II 


158 HIS LETTERS 

and who is Browning that they should not 
take the trouble to make themselves as in- 
telligible at a glance, to persons of moderate 
parts, like myself, for instance, as Shak- 
spere, Milton, Victor Hugo, Pascal, Virgil, 
and Homer are ? It is sheer laziness or 
ridiculous conceit, or a mixture of both, and 
verily they have their reward ; for they 
lose, now and hereafter, nine-tenths of the 
readers they might have had. Fame in the 
highest sense cannot be theirs. To get 
fame you must be intelligible to more than 
a little knot of patient, nut-cracking dis- 
ciples. 

I supposed Miss D. to have been married 
long ago. There is a notion current — 
whether correct I know not — that mar- 
riage broadens, softens, and sweetens the 
feminine mind. By the way, I always 
thought one of the best of them, so far as 
natural aptitude was concerned, was C. 
She had no beauty, but I once saw her act 
in some private theatricals, and I remember 
I was much struck with a betrayal, a revela- 
tion of emotion. 

Your dear letter reached me on Saturday, 


HIS LETTERS 


159 


about two hours after I had sent forth a 
despairing plaint. I do not exaggerate 
when I say that I have read it thirty times. 

Letter Fiftieth. 

Oh, how sweet it is to commune, dearest, 
with your lovely soul ! Oh, my God, with 
what profound and what pathetic affection 
I adore you. You almost make me die 
sometimes when you imply or seem to — that 
you think I love you only in one way. 
Alas, I do love you in that way ! Who 
could help it that once had looked in your 
lovely eyes and pressed your hand ? But 
you have no idea what an elevating and 
stimulating influence you have on me. 
With you my brain grows so prolific that it 
could give forth work as a fountain plays. 
But near you I could do nothing. I would 
deem it sacrilege to waste one of the pre- 
cious moments that might never occur again. 
How happy I have been to see you ! Hap- 
pier than ever before in my life. You see, 
I never knew what love was before ; but 
you have taught me, my adored one. It 
really is incredible what fertility and vigor 


HIS LETTERS 


i6o 

of mind you give me. And nothing could 
chill my heart but cold words from you. 
What else could cast so much as the faintest 
fleck of cloud over my devotion ? Oh, 
I am desperately fond of you. I hunger 
for the pressure of your hand. I am mad 
to kneel before you and kiss your little 
foot. How beautiful you are ! 

Adieu, my queen, my love, my idol. 

Letter Fifty-Jirst, 

Every day that passes when I do not see 
you leaves me more and more depressed. 
It is only for the first few hours after we 
part that I can forget to be unhappy. 
Yesterday I sighed in vain for a letter, and 
I wanted one because it worried me to 
think that on Tuesday evening you would 
get a horrid note that I had posted. I 
tried to make you promise not to read it, 
but I could not. You can do anything 
with me, but I, alas, cannot even persuade 
you not to open an envelope. I should 
think I was dominated ! 

How I wished yesterday that I could 
have been with you in the country, have 


HIS LETTERS i6i 

passed that perfect day near you. Oh, it 
would have been a heaven upon earth ! 
Would we not have walked upon the sea- 
shore, dearest, and should I not have felt 
your hand upon my arm, and should not 
my eyes have fed on your sweet face ? 

As it was, I sat for several hours by the 
river. 

In one of your most gracious moments 
you announced to me lately an inclination 
to think that I was actually becoming 
respectable. Such flattery quite staggered 
me. But I really wish you could have 
seen me at the L.’s, a miracle of deportment 
and the very ideal of the frump. I wore a 
carefully composed countenance, in which 
were judiciously mingled complacency, gen- 
eral philanthropy, special benignity. It is 
a shame that you do not see me in these 
my creditable moments. 

In answer to your question, I will say 
that the phrase of which you speak occurs, 
I think, in the dispatch sent to Mazarin by 
the Prince de Cond4 after the battle of 
Rocroi. Their victory on that field cost 
the French dear ; but it was worth the cost. 


i 62 


HIS LETTERS 


being the first time that Frenchmen had 
beaten Spaniards in nearly a hundred and 
fifty years, since Gonzalo of Cordova armed 
his men with pikes, and drew them up 
in those deep phalanx-like masses — the 
famous tercios. 

There, I should answer your questions 
more punctually. How can I when there is 
only one thought in my mind ? I love you, 
worship you, adore you, noblest, dearest, 
most beautiful of women. Ah, if this were 
midsummer I should persecute you. As it 
is June, and you are not free, will you not 
at least be generous to the most desper- 
ately enamored of men ? 

Letter Fifty-second, 

My heart’s beloved — oh, you, the woman 
without whom I cannot live happily one 
hour, and whom I would not survive a 
minute — how could you bruise my heart by 
wasting one precious page on a wretched 
trifle to which I would never have given 
a second thought ? Never would I have 
mentioned the thing except that I deemed 
it possible you might some time see 


HIS LETTERS 


163 


Mrs. ; and I desire to warn you of 

her mischief-making propensity. Did you 
imagine her words could have any influence 
on me ? Ah, sweetest one, how could you 
believe this so soon, before the roses that 
you gave me had faded, before the hand- 
kerchief that I stole had lost its fra- 
grance — a fragrance that makes me hot and 
faint by turns with passion ? How could 
you suppose that a man who loves you as 
you know that I love you could be shaken 
by a silly word ; could be shaken by any- 
thing, aye anything that you yourself might 
tell me. There is nothing you could do that 
would not be perfect in my eyes, and would 
not make me adore you more ; you could 
not disenchant me. Ah, but you do not 
yet know the wondrous alchemy of love ; 
you have yet to learn it. . . . The last time 
that I wrote how could I speak? Your 
injunctions had tied my wings and loaded 
me with weights. Even my thoughts were 
paralyzed and could not fly to you. But 
listen, if ever again you accuse me of 
indifference, I will dispatch a letter that 
will scorch the mail-bags and set the train 


164 


HIS LETTERS 


on fire ; and lest it should by some chance 
reach you, I warn you to take out a large 
policy of fire insurance on your house. 

My darling, let us never speak or think 
again of such a miserable trifle as the spite- 
ful speeches of envious women. Here- 
after, should such things enter my ear, I 
would forthwith bury them, encyst them in 
my brain. 

. . . When you write to me again say 
that you care a little for me. Say that I 
may see you once again. Next week is your 
birthday. May I send you some flowers ? 
I worship you, you know it ! 

Letter Fifty-third. 

I have your telegram. My darling, of 

course Mrs. said it. But that proves 

nothing, does it ? She will repeat it when 
I go up there, for I shall go, with a resolve 
to stamp out that nest of your enemies. 
Ah, I shall be very nice to them until they 
have said all that they have to say — how else 
shall I know what to answer? — but when 
they have ended I shall have my innings. 
Do you think that my beloved will suffer 


HIS LETTERS 


165 

then ? You have no occasion to feel indig- 
nant. I welcome the opportunity of meet- 
ing the envious creatures who would drag 
you to their level. Take in exchange for 
your charming woman’s vanity a dash of my 
Satanic pride, that cares not an iota what 
anyone but the loved one thinks. Why, 
suppose you had said the thing, sweet ? 
Do you know it would have flattered me ? 
It was as if you had put your little foot 
upon my neck. Have I not once kissed 
your slender footprints in the sand ? I 
almost wish that you had said it. Am I 
not your slave ? Say what you will of me, 
for you are generous and noble, and I 
know you would not say a word that was 
not just. 

I am infinitely better and higher for hav- 
ing known you. Tell me that you do not 
feel that knowing me has deteriorated you. 
Oh, that is a terrible thought you once 
hinted at ; how cruel to a man who would 
die for you ! You didn’t mean it, did you ? 
It would kill me to think you meant it. 
Tell me that you are not sorry you ever 
knew me. Tell me ! the fault can be rem* 


i66 


HIS LETTERS 


edied. Tell me quickly. Don’t miss a 
mail. 


Letter Fifty -fourth. 

Oh, when I break out of Capua, and 
set up my standard on the hills, all the 
discontented and the clever will rally 
around me, for they know that I do not 
fear. What should I fear when I think of 
thee ? 

I shall not answer the first letter. It 
plunged me into sadness. Oh, what irony 
of fate that sent me, for the first love of my 
life, the only one that ever filled my heart, 
into the camp of enemies ! It was a rape 
of the Sabines that this son of Romulus 
was driven to attempt ; and yet I have 
never heard that those lovely Sabine women 
hated their Roman ravishers after the fell 
work was done. Strange, strange beyond 
revelation are the revulsions of nature ! 
Oh, how I should love you ! To doubt it 
is to dishonor your inevitable fascinations. 
When you speak thus you dishonor me, I 
almost hate you — almost — I could not hate 
you utterly. 


HIS LETTERS 167 

Alas ! a sight of her, a word from her 
would recall me to a sanity. 

Letter Fifty-Jifth, 

I have just returned. I am free at last 
to write to you where and when I like. I 
came home with my heart full of tenderness 
and passion, and I find a dreadful reaction 
in a letter that fills me with despair. I 
cannot bear such letters. What do you 
mean by saying that I struck at you ? I 
struck at fate, which, it seems, has spoiled 
my life. And you can say that I struck at 
you ! Oh, you are a tigress ! . . . You 
never had these reactions when you were 

in M before you saw me. Now you 

have them. The inference is too obvious. 
You say you have wondered what I thought 
of you that evening in your boudoir. 
Don’t you know what I thought of you 
then and always ? But I give up, I throw 
up the sponge, I am beaten. What use of 
struggling longer ? For you see I love 
you, whatever you may think ; and if my 
loving you as a man ought to love a woman 
makes you unhappy, for God’s sake let me 


i68 


HIS LETTERS 


love you in another way ! I can do it. At 
least, I will try. . . . Before you went away 
you never wrote me these doubtful, suspi- 
cious, insulting letters. Do you wish never 
to see me again ? Say so if you will be 
happier. . . . Why don’t you know that 
only one woman in a million can feel love, 
and only one woman in ten millions can 
evoke it ? You haven’t the faintest concep- 
tion of what a man would do who feels as I 
do. You cannot love, the idea is ridicu- 
lous. Alas, alas ! I hoped for happiness 
when I got back, but it was not for me. 
Adieu dear I 

Letter Fifty-sixth. 

Sweetest one, it is the curse of absence. 
No one seems to have noticed it, that 
if you do not correspond, and really love, 
all is well. A man, at all events, who 
felt as I feel for you, would never change. 
A woman might, because she has more 
vanity. Ah, you are vain, dearest, so vain, 
and I love you for your vanity. But to be 
absent and yet correspond, oh, that is ruin. 
One receives a letter written in one mood. 


HIS LETTERS 


169 


One answers it — it is received in quite 
another mood, as the next letter shows. 
And who suffers ? The lover. It is always 
his fault, no matter what happens. How 
cruel is your last letter ! Why do you say 
such things to me? Of course you think 
them or you would not say them. But if I 
were a woman I would not bruise a man 
who had traveled day and night to get her 
letters a few hours earlier, by such self- 
divulgations as this. But alas ! you know 
your power. You know that you can say 
anything to me, and you abuse it. Ah, 
how funny it seems to me to hear you pre- 
tend to care for me. Of course you do it 
only out of sympathy and compassion. It 
is ill done, madame, an under-study. 

Letter Fifty -seventh. 

Why do you sometimes say to me — I ask 
dear, humbly, sadly — for whenever I recall 
the words they plunge me in sorrow — why 
do you speak as if you feared, should you 
ever come to share a little of the feeling 
which in such awful intensity I have for 
you, it would cause you to look downward 


HIS LETTERS 


170 

and not up ? If that be truly your appre- 
hension, banish me at once, and utterly. 
Tell me the reason of the banishment and 
I will not utter one word of protest or 
appeal. It would kill me to think that 
knowing me had lowered you in your own 
esteem ; but I will submit in silence. I 
love you — a sentiment like mine is a grand 
orchestra, and sweeps the whole gamut of 
emotion, from the noblest aspiration to the 
fiercest appetite. I love you too tenderly, 
devoutly, and unselfishly to ask for any- 
thing which it would hurt your heart to 
give. But how can it be possible that any 
feeling you can conceive for me should 
have an effect opposite to that produced by 
my love for you ? Why, so quickening, 
lifting, and electrifying is your influence 
upon my mind and heart as well as body, 
that I positively dread, I feel ashamed to 
see anybody lest the source of my moral 
elevation and mental excitement should be 
penetrated. I cannot talk with any intelli- 
gent person upon any interesting subject 
without my face so lighting up, and my 
tongue pouring forth such a flood of 


ms LETTERS 


171 

imagery that I know they say, when I am 
gone, ‘‘ What has happened to Thornton ? 
Something strange must have befallen him, 
for he is thrice the man he was.” I know 
they say this, for I sometimes catch them 
looking at me in a surprised, inquisitive, sus- 
picious way. If your name had been men- 
tioned, one might account for this, but it 
has not been for weeks. The last time it 
was, I made it clear that I thought it ques- 
tionable taste for men who had not the 
pleasure of knowing a lady to talk of her ; 
so it can’t be that. It is the profound, 
potent, all-pervasive, clarifying, dignifying 
influence that the thought of you exerts. 
Oh, why should I exercise on you an in- 
fluence the dismal and deadly opposite? 
It is a dreadful, dreadful thought ; but do 
not for an instant fancy that I presume to 
chide you. You tell me the truth, and it 
is the truth that is so horrible. 

What could be the thing I said to you 
that you liked? I will try again. Was it 
what I said when I likened you to Arte- 
mis? No? Then was it what I said about 
violets that were crushed on someone’s 


172 HIS LETTERS 

bosom ? But I have said things since, that 
it would break my heart to think you did 
not like better than anything I said before. 
But who can tell what a woman so dis- 
tractingly lovable, so mysterious and beauti- 
ful, may be thinking or feeling at a given 
hour ? Let us rather stand breathless, 
trembling, awaiting good or ill, the gods’ 
design. Ah, when you think of me, shiver 
at the thought that you possess over a 
human being the power of life and death. 
The angel of destruction could not fell me 
to the earth more quickly and more surely, 
with a touch of his icy finger, than you 
could with a word. 

Letter Fifty-eighth, 

Only a woman of genius, who is also con- 
scious of exceeding loveliness, could have 
invented such a birthday gift as I received 
on Friday morning. A mere beauty would 
not have thought of it, because she would 
have had neither the needed brains nor 
heart. And there are many women of 
brains and talent who would not have car- 
ried out the thought, indeed, being but too 


HIS LETTERS 


173 


sadly aware of the fact that there was noth- 
ing in a glimpse of their faces and their 
figures to make to a lover all the difference 
between heaven and earth. But you knew 
that if I were sitting at the furthest end of 
an opera house, where I could descry but 
faintly your face far distant, the sight of it 
would cast me into a delicious trance. And 
your voice — the sound of it would, if I were 
blind, make me as amorous as poor Milton 
was when his hot imagination had to play 
the part of eyes. But my birthday gift 
meant more to me than the sight of a coun- 
tenance of matchless loveliness, and the 
sound of a voice that makes a plaything of 
my heart. Do you know how proud of you 
I am when you do a fine, original, bold 
thing like that ? Ah yes, you are as much 
astray in this century as I am. But no, we 
are not astray since we have found each 
other. 

Letter Fifty-ninth. 

Sunday. 

What a fool I was ever to imagine that I 
knew what love was before ! I never got a 

12 


174 HIS LETTERS 

glimpse of him, never even guessed how 
terrible, yet how delicious he could be. 

Oh, I wish I had not asked you that 
question yesterday. It broke from me in 
my torment. You say, “ I know not jeal- 
ousy.” My God ! no woman could know it 
as I know it. Her frame would be too 
weak to bear it. But I do not speak of it — 
not often — I am too proud to let you see. 
But that question was blasphemy. After I 
had sent the letter, I hung over your picture 
for an hour. That mouth and chin, oh, 
who could read them as I do, and not 
loathe himself for the thought that prompted 
such an insult ? Why they are the very 
home — the altar — of modesty, of purity, of 
chastity inviolate — alas — inviolable. Ah, 
there speaks that which may well drive a 
lover to despair, there speaks Artemis ; oh, 
Heaven, I divined her ! All the rest is 
Venus, but that, Artemis. That was what 
the old Frenchman saw : his dazzled eyes 
were not at fault. Oh, I told you that you 
were fashioned to drive men crazy, while 
you yourself are sane and cold. You will 
never love, never, not as women were in- 


HIS LETTERS 


175 


tended to love men. There will always 
arise in you the stern, implacable protest of 
the priestess who defends her temple’s sanc- 
tity. But what a dreadful fate is mine, to 
love for the first time, and such a woman ! of 
the mystic dual nature that dooms a man to 
pine unsatisfied. 

Later , — You like me to tell you every- 
thing, don’t you, dearest ? I am ravished 
when you speak with absolute liberty to me. 
May I tell you, then, that with all your pre- 
tensions to be a woman of the world, in 
certain things, you seem to me the simplest 
and most artless child. I so want you to un- 
derstand me ; sometimes you say you do not. 
But you will, you will if you let me speak 
to you with complete freedom. By and by, 
you will have faith in me, will trust me, 
will believe every word I say. Ah, it is a 
beautiful thing for two human beings to 
wholly believe in one another. That is one 
of Heaven’s bridals. 

There are things that as my eyes rove 
over that dim transcript of your loveliness, I 
would fain say to you but dare not. The 
brows, the eyelids, the eyelashes, the tell-tale 


176 


HIS LETTERS 


nuque, that column of ivory, your throat, the 
splendid proportions and diviner promise 
of the arm. And oh, God ! the budding of a 
bosom which a deity would renounce heaven 
to touch ; but I dare not, I dare not. The 
purity of that mouth and chin appall. Stay 
ever in the clouds, sweet Artemis. De- 
scend to earth not for one hour ! What 
would befall him who knew you once only 
to lose you ? 

Letter Sixtieth, 

Do you think there is any fun at all in 
such a sentiment as possesses me, when she 
that inspires it and controls it with a breath 
is absent ? I am wretched, miserable ; I 
suffer the tortures of the damned. 

I cannot answer questions. I cannot 
write on commonplace subjects. What is 
to be done for such a hopeless case of mat 
d' amour as this ? 

I have at this moment received your 
letter. The first part of it was freezing ; 
you were annoyed with me. But the last 
part of your note, just a few lines of it, 
was heavenly. Ah, my loved one, say it 


HIS LETTERS 


177 


again ; let me have that music ever in my 
ears ! As a rule you are infinitely more 
reserved than I, when we are together. I 
know not what has come over me, for to 
you I think and feel aloud. I don’t under- 
stand it ; I never felt before this wild 
desire to tell everything. I have a wish 
that there were a window in my heart for 
you. There is absolutely nothing that I 
would conceal from you. What bliss it is 
to me to feel such perfect love and trust as 
that ! I don’t mean of course, dearest, that 
I am not jealous of you. God forbid. I am 
mad with jealousy ; but I am too wise to 
borrow trouble. I don’t need to borrow. 
You say things that throw me into a fever 
of fear and foreboding. Oh, don’t make 
me jealous ; spare me that. I know my- 
self ; I shall be wicked, cruel. I am capable 
of hurting the being that I would die for. 
No, no, I am not ; that sounds like a 
threat ; and do what you like, alas, I have 
no rights, not even the rights of a lover, no, 
not even his. 

Dearest, she that wrote the '' Hep- 
tameron ” was a charming woman, and like 


178 


HIS LETTERS 


most women of her time, had probably 
discovered what love meant. From my 
soul I pity the man or woman who dies 
without such learning ; yet ninety-nine 
thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine in 
a hundred thousand do. They know not 
love. I see it but too well. Thank God 
that you have taught me ; for with that clew 
the whole tangled skein of human life is 
easily unraveled. But about Marguerite ; 
she was the niece of the author of the 
“ Heptameron,” she was the sister-in-law of 
Mary Stuart, the sister of Charles the IX., 
and Henry the III., and the first wife of 
Henry the IV. She was not only the 
loveliest, but the cleverest, the sweetest, and 
the gentlest woman of that delicious time. 
Of course, being born in that epoch, she 
could not lead the life of a nun, could she? 
Did she not fall in love ? It was she who 
when her first love, la Mole, was done to 
death, for her sake, caused his heart to be 
cut out of his body, and treasured it. Do 
you think that horrible ? I think it most 
beautiful. It was she who, for la raison dli- 
tat, was married against her will to that 


HIS LETTERS 


179 


bandy-legged, red-haired little rascal whom 
fools glorify as Henry of Navarre. She 
would never let him come near her, except 
in public, and turned him loose to browze 
in meaner pastures. But in the Saint 
Bartholomew — ah, she had a heart like 
yours, the sweetest and the kindest — she 
saved the husband that she loved not, how 
think you ? By putting him where the 
spadassins of her brother and her lover, the 
Due de Guise, would never look for him — 
under her bed. And yet the wretched 
Gascon cad, when he came to the throne, 
forgot that he owed his life to this sweet 
lady, and humbled her and repudiated her, 
because his vanity was galled at her refusal 
to have him as a lover. The charges 
against her are nothing. She was the best 
woman of her time. Perfect ? Had she 
been perfect she had been less lovable. 

What right have you to be such an 
enchanting, splendid creature, scattering 
destruction on every hand ? Do you want 
to be the scourge of the human race, or one 
man s happiness ? Have you made up 
your mind? Tell me, say it. Oh, your 


i8o 


HIS LETTERS 


words go through me as if I had clutched 
an electric wire. But you will never love 
me a thousandth part as madly as I love 
you. You could never convince me of that 
by words. Ah, noble, tender woman, don’t 
you know that I love you as no other 
woman of this hour is loved, upon this 
earth ? Don’t you know it, believe it, feel 
it, in every fiber of your loveliness ? How 
can you then keep me away so long ? 

Letter Sixty -first, 

I was delighted to hear about G.’s appre- 
ciation of your talent. I would rather 
have his commendation than a unani- 
mous verdict from all the rest. I thank 
you, dear, for telling me at once these things 
that make, and ought to make you happy. 

How beautiful you are. Do you know 
that every line of your face, and every tint 
and every curve of your body are so im- 
pressed upon my retina that I can see you 
at this moment, with wonderful distinctness. 
If you had no figure at all your face would 
make you a sorceress, and if your face were 
always masked, your figure would drive men 


HIS LETTERS 


l8i 


crazy. But you are absolutely free from 
the desires which you arouse in others— the 
serene and placid condition of the immortal 
gods. Yes, Aurora, I do not believe that 
you care much about Tithonus. You are 
just amusing yourself with him, because you 
find him, in some particulars, a highly sen- 
sitive and nervous subject. You like to 
make emotional experiments. If the vic- 
tims don’t fully appreciate the aesthetic pur- 
poses to which they are put, tant pis pour 
eux. For my own part, I am well content 
to serve as the provoker of the hard thinking 
which goes on in that little head. As for 
mastering the heart that should go with 
such a pretty head, I have ceased even to 
aspire to that. If that admirable mansion 
has a tenant for life, it is not me. You 
have not even deigned to say that you have 
not changed your mind about Monday, or 
to name the hour when one may call and see 
you. I shall expect to receive a telegram 
putting me off. Ah well, that sort of thing 
may be fun to you, but it is death to me. 

Alas, I wish I could believe that if I died 
to-morrow, you would remember me a single 


i 82 


HIS LETTERS 


day, that you felt a millionth part of the 
love, passion, worship, adoration, madness 
that I feel for you. 

Letter Szxty-second. 

I have seen you now in four ways, and a 
large part of my time is spent in trying to 
make up my mind how I like you best. Of 
course, in your rich evening gowns, when 
you reveal most, you are most deadly. But 
the problem is too complex to be solved on 
that simple principle. It is not to be denied, 
at all events, that in that simple girlish cos- 
tume, in your atelier, you were bewitching. 
And yet I felt afraid of you. How often have 
I dreamed of carrying you off, and secreting 
you from the eyes of men, away upon that 
enchanted shore of which I have spoken to 
you. But I know now you would not long 
be happy thus. You are a woman, thank 
Heaven, although a princess; and therefore 
you have some of a woman’s captivating 
weaknesses. It is your sex that makes you 
different from me in one particular — that you 
care what people say about you. You think 
you don’t, and yet you do ; you can’t help it. 


HIS LETTERS 


183 

You don’t care much while what they say 
isn’t true, but the moment that you felt it to 
be true you would care. Ah, how well I 
know you ! Of course I do ; it is like know- 
ing myself — with nothing but the sex 
changed. And so, dear, since, although you 
do not more than half believe it, it is your 
welfare and your happiness that I care for 
more than the slaking of my own mad pas- 
sion, we will, if you like, exchange in our 
imaginings the island for the altar. This is 
a tremendous sacrifice for me to make ; for 
I foresee that, could I marry you, to a man 
of my disposition, life in the world with you 
would be a hell on earth. So long as I do 
not see things I can, with an effort, put 
certain thoughts away ; but if I were to 
see a man look at you in a certain way, 
I could not keep my hands from his 
throat. 

Oh, I am quite impracticable, I recognize 
it now. I understand why the Greeks speak 
of jealousy as green. Green ? yes, I should 
turn green. It is a silly thing to say, but 
you were right in guessing that I have not 
before known what jealousy is ; but Heavens, 


184 


HIS LETTERS 


I know now ! And when I think of the 
agonies it would inflict upon me, I say, '' Oh, 
never mind what people say ; let us take the 
island and a steam-yacht ! ” But alas, alas, 
you could never be contented alone with me. 
And yet I think you care for me a little. 
Ah, have I not read it in your eyes, and 
quivering lips, at last ? And that last letter 
of yours, is it not the letter of a woman who 
loves, loves in all the delicious and enchant- 
ing ways which the soul and body can invent ? 
I have drunk of that letter and it has given 
me joy. 

Letter Sixty-third. 

What a roguish and provoking crea- 
ture you are! You see I am still in the 
sighing stage, sighing like a furnace, and 
wondering what a certain lovely woman can 
be made of to say such pretty things and 
do so little. Oh, Solomon was right ; there 
are three things that I cannot understand, 
yea, four that are unintelligible unto me. 
But really the way of a cony among the 
rocks was straight and obvious compared 
with the way that this fair lady has of play- 


HIS LETTERS 


185 


ing with one whom she teases by pretending 
to call her lover when she knows that he is 
not. But if I cannot have anything else, 
tease me more. Give me another letter 
quickly, give me a ''volume.” I am much 
amused at what you tell me about T. 
Fancy a man’s head being turned so easily ! 
How convenient such men must be. If I 
were a pretty woman, fond of studying the 
male of my species, but not overburdened 
with passions myself, that is just the sort of 
man I would have about me. I wouldn’t be 
bothered with people that are always clam- 
oring for more. I wish I were a pretty 
woman. No, I don’t. I fear that with my 
temperament I should surrender at the first 
fire, and that would never do, would it ? 
Come, imagine that I am a woman, and 
give me sage advice. About how long do 
you think that I ought to hold out pour 
I' honneur du drapeau ? A whole day, a 
week ? Oh, that is impossible ! You see, we 
have not all of us your regal self-control. 
We have got more of the slave’s instinct, 
that when it sees its master drops. You 
must adapt your counsel to our weakness. 


HIS LETTERS 


1 86 

We cannot all play with fire entirely un- 
singed, as you do. 

Ah, would that I might kill you with my 
love ! 

Hubert. 


Letter Sixty-fourth, 

If I were a woman I should shudder at 
possessing such power over a human being 
that one glimpse of my face would make 
the difference between hell and heaven. 

I have ceased to expect or believe in any- 
thing. For a whole week I had been look- 
ing forward to seeing you. You knew that 
I was unhappy, and that the only ray of 
light upon my life was shed by you. Yet, 
without the faintest provocation, you robbed 
me of those days; and,^to make my outlook 
for the future entirely hopeless, informed 
me that every living woman would have 
done the same. I take leave to doubt that 
assertion, but of course your making it 
means that at any moment you may repeat 
the torture to which you have subjected me. 
Oh, I was glad to go away and stay with my 
dogs, who at all events do not breathe hot 


HIS LETTERS 


187 


and cold a dozen times a day. My heart 
was like a lump of lead, when I went to 
my place. It is certain that only a man 
free from other causes of unhappiness, and 
an idle man at that, with nothing to do but 
fret and dream, has any business to fall in 
love with a woman of your type — no, not 
your type — there is no such type, you are 
unique. I wish I had the strength to break 
my bonds. I cannot bear such heartless 
treatment. As I told you at the time, you 
were thinking only of your own self, and 
not in the least of the pain you were inflict- 
ing on another. What is that but the quin- 
tessence of selfishness ? You have cared a 
little for my letters, but for me you have 
not cared. I exert over you no personal 
attraction. Do you prefer that I should 
write to you and never see you ? Why 
don’t you say so ? 

I don’t believe that you are coming to 
town. I shall believe it only when I see 
you. You will have had time to change 
your mind a dozen times, and send me 
twelve contradictory messages. I have lost 
all faith in any of your promises. I trust 


i88 


HIS LETTERS 


this letter will please you. It is made to 
your own order, and carefully adapted to 
the meridian where you dwell. 

Letter Sixty -fifth. 

Thank you, dear angel, for forgiving the 
brutal words that you found awaiting you 
on Tuesday evening. I must have been 
mad to call you selfish. It is I that am a 
monster of selfishness toward you. It is 
strange and dreadful that it should be so, 
for I don’t think that I am particularly sel- 
fish where others are concerned. It is only 
toward my adorable beloved that I am so 
brutally and fiercely and mercilessly sel- 
fish. At this moment I am almost weeping 
from contrition and yet I know that to- 
morrow, if my eyes pounced upon your face, 
or an hour hence, if my imagination should 
picture your beauty too vividly, I should be 
just as bad as ever. What will you do with 
me, tell me what ? 

What a child you are ! Why don’t I in- 
vite you to my place ? Because you are 
always there uninvited, you live there. 
Whose face but yours is it, do you suppose. 


ms LETTERS 


189 


that is always wooing my eyes to wander 
from those that speak to me, and fasten 
themselves, in a kind of ecstasy, on what 
the blind people round me believe to be the 
viewless air ? Whose voice but yours en- 
chants my ear, and deafens it to all meaner 
music ? I don’t wonder that some people 
say that I am losing my mind, because I no 
longer seem to have the faculty of atten- 
tion. Others, much more penetrating, say, 
“ He behaves as if he were infatuated with 
someone.” Ah, they must indeed be ob- 
tuse who cannot penetrate my secret ! 

Letter Sixty^sixth, 

When I began that letter which I wrote 
yesterday, my heart was full of the most ar- 
dent love ; but it overflows now with bitter- 
ness when I think what the loss of those 
two days has meant to me. Why, they are 
gone ; no one can give them back to me, 
not even you. Life is just so much the 
smaller and poorer for that loss. Oh, it was 
a cruel blow to deal a man that loved you, 
and for what cause, think of it ! Oh, let 

me assure you, madame, it is really incon- 
13 


190 


HIS LETTERS 


venient to have a too ardent lover. I have 
often read that the over-ardent make fear- 
ful mistakes and lose the good-will of the 
adored one, where cool-headed ones might 
win. But what good does another’s wisdom 
do us ? How can one be wise when one 
is burnt up with love, desire, and passion ? 
And so — and so there have been moments 
— I shiver to think of it — when I positively 
hated you. I hated you as a child hates 
the hand that hurts him. I could find no 
excuse for you, as I was whirled by a tem- 
pest of indignation and regret. 

You know that it is only out of your 
sight that I grow frantic. At the sight of 
you I am a lamb. Ah yes, you know it. 
What am I to do ? Don’t you see that it 
is agony to love a woman as I love you. 
Do you like to see me writhe in agony ? 
How can a woman like it ? You say I am 
all at sea in such things. Thank God, I 
am ; I would rather be at sea than on land 
so pitiless and rockbound that a lover’s 
sore and desperate rebellion provoked only 
a superior smile. 


HIS LETTERS 


191 


Letter Sixty-seven. 

I have had three, three happy days : I 
adore you for giving them to me. I never 
knew happiness before. To be near you 
wakes a maddening fever in my veins. I 
forget where I am ; I lose my own iden- 
tity. 

What delicious ideas and inventions you 
have ! What a glorified Eden of love is 
the imagination ! Think of your buying 
that pretty little cup and saucer, and bring- 
ing it to me, by way of our beginning house- 
keeping on our little island ! I had no idea 
that I should become so wildly fond of tea ; 
but a first sip is not enough from that pretty 
little pink cup. I hope that it will be more 
than a sip the next time. I want a deep, 
scorching, intoxicating draught. 

Yes, your ways are enchanting. They 
make me recall the sentence with which 
Brantome used so often to introduce anec- 
dotes : Void une autre gentille et piquante 
fagon ai amour. 

When shall I see you ? You seem very 
far away to-day, and it is only in my dreams 


192 


HIS LETTERS 


that I can look into your sweet and bashful 
eyes. 

Do you know that you are one of the 
proudest women in the world ? Ah yes, 
she that I love is a delicious combination of 
pride and tenderness. How blessed be- 
yond expression would be the man whom 
such a one could condescend to love ! 

I have always said that for genuine pas- 
sion, the sort of ardor a man feels himself, 
one must either look among the people, the 
very humble people, from whom actresses 
are recruited, or to a great lady. The pas- 
sions are feeble, if not entirely extinct, 
among the bourgeoisie, or even among what 
one would have to admit were ladies, but 
not great ladies. They are such slaves of 
convention that their passions, if they were 
born with any, are starved to death. But a 
great lady can be above conventions. 

Oh, that I might be in the country with 
you to-day ! to wander with you in the 
woods, or on the sands, where I could turn 
my head over my shoulder and mark your 
foot-prints, and stooping kiss them. But 
you will never love me as I love you, never. 


HIS LETTERS 


193 


As to the degree of your sentiment for 
me, I am rent with doubt and anxiety. 
I shall give you back the ribbon. You 
must wear it for me a little while, for it has 
lost a little of its maddening perfume. 

Good-night ! 

Letter Sixty-eighth, 

... I must write to you again to-night. 
Oh, you lovely creature, I have seen your 
picture ; I cannot tell you what I think of it. 
I will not until you answer this one ques- 
tion. Ah, answer it, my queen, my em- 
press. Tell me exactly when you began to 
paint it, and when you ended it. Ah, tell 
me that ; it will mean much to me, and tell 
me the truth, as I tell you. Oh, yes, you and 
I alone, of all mortals, always tell the truth 
to one another. Ah, how great, how great 
you seem to me ! It is simply not possible 
that you should care for me. Oh, you are 
the heaven-sent genius! You cannot, can- 
not care for me. My God 1 My God 1 how 
I do worship you ! All my life I have been 
dreaming of a woman to whom I could talk 
in shorthand. Men used to tell me that if a 


194 


HIS LETTERS 


woman were as well educated, as accom- 
plished, as talented as I desired, there 
would be something wanting in her heart or 
her body. I laughed them to scorn. '' You 
think that brains would make a woman less 
desirable? You have read history in vain. 
I have not, no, I have not. There have 
been such women, and it must be that one 
exists — shall I find her?” 

And now you are ill. You are over- 
worked. You cannot eat. When you re- 
ceive this letter, get up at once ! I order 
you to do so. Do you hear me? He that 
you thought a slave has suddenly become a 
sovereign. Get up, do you hear me ? and 
eat a beef-steak. I will kill myself if you 
cannot receive me before I leave. 

Oh, my love, my love, my love, send me a 
line to-night ! 

Letter Sixty-ninth. 

Do you know, madame, that you have 
had the honor of making me cry? I don’t 
mean crying for you, that wouldn’t be so 
strange would it ? But crying over the 
child of your hands, over that little tragedy 


HIS LETTERS 


195 


in your painting. Ah, you don’t know 
what a triumph was that, and what a con- 
summate proof of power. If you could so 
sway me, how will you sway others ? Less 
— what shall I say — less on their guard, 
less tough, less rock-like ? Yes, there is more 
genius in this little thing than in any of its 
predecessors. How could you write to me 
then, as you did, that you were discouraged ? 
That you “ could not paint ” ? Well, I gave 
you a good scolding then for your self-depre- 
ciation, and if you ever dare to say that to 
me again, I will — let me see — I will whip you 
with little rods made of young sugar canes ! 

Oh, but I am proud of you ! How heav- 
enly sweet you are to say that I may give 
you a little present. Tell me what was in 
your mind. Can it possibly be the same 
thing that I have thought of, and wondered 
whether you would be pleased or annoyed 
that I should send you ? 

You can judge how easy it is for me to 
go away from you, when I tell you that 
last week there was a desperate effort made 
to take me away for three weeks. Every- 
thing was to be done ; I should have noth- 


196 


HIS LETTERS 


ing to do, and a prospect of lots of money. 
Do you know, I actually had to pretend to 
accept, but I speedily invented an iron-clad 
excuse, and telegraphed it. 

Had I painted this picture that you have 
done, I would have dozens of copies strewn 
all over my rooms. How dreadful that 
you are ill. 

Now if you don’t obey me and rise from 
your couch, and eat something immediately 
and stand firm on those pretty legs, what 
shall I do to you ? Alas, I forget La reine 
(L Espagne n a pas de jambes. 

Letter Seventieth. 

In the name of God, do not protract this 
fearful agony a moment. Say something 
to me — put me out of this terrible pain. If 
you mean never to see me or write to me 
again, oh, say so. Let me know the worst 
quickly, quickly. It is fiendish to leave me 
for four days in suspense. 

I was mad on Wednesday ; I know not a 
word I said. Whatever I said I abjure it 
with my head in the dust. But as there is 
nothing, nothing but love and adoration for 


HIS LETTERS 


197 


you in my ^heart, I could have said little 
that should wound you very deeply. It is 
the very test of love that even in his rage 
he does not. 

In the fiercest heat of my disappointment 
and my anger you must have seen that you 
possessed my heart, that its every beat and 
throb are yours. I admit that I was wholly 
wrong, that I had no cause for wrath, that 
everything you did was right, that there is 
nothing you could do which could justify 
such an outburst. Alas ! I admit every- 
thing, for what am I but a poor miserable 
slave. One does not trample as you do on 
a slave. One is more merciful when one is 
all-powerful. But I want your sympathy 
and your forgiveness, not your pity. I will 
not have your pity, there is no room for it 
in the same heart with love. Akin to love 
she may be, but she is love’s poor relative, 
allowed to frequent the ante-room, but not 
the presence [chamber, where the princess 
is enthroned. No, I’ll have none of her. 
But forgive me, forgive me, once more for- 
give ; and for God’s sake send me a word 
at once, one word. 


198 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Seventy-first, 

My heart is too much wrung to command 
service of my voice. I cannot speak, I can 
only throw myself upon your mercy, and 
I can only weep in an agony of contrition 
and self-contempt. 

Listen, dearest— ah, let me call you dearest 
just this once — I must tell you something 
now that may seem to criminate my con- 
duct, to make it worse. I do not want to 
have to tell you this when I am allowed to 
see you. As it turned out, there was 
no cause for the cyclone of fury and an- 
ger which burst upon me when I saw, as I 
thought, all my hopes shattered in an hour. 
I can no longer claim the honor of unsel- 
fishness. It was of myself that I was think- 
ing when I poured out upon you those 
angry and cruel words. But no, I cannot 
write it. I will tell you, if you deign to see 
me, how I discovered that on that terrible 
Wednesday, the stars, after all, had been 
fighting in their courses for me. Nothing 
was as I supposed. Don’t say that this 
makes me still more unpardonable. How 


HIS LETTERS 


199 


could anyone foresee such an interposition 
of destiny on my behalf? Until I met you, 
fate was always against me. How could I 
realize that you had changed the dice ? 

You have not received the cry of despair 
that I sent to you yesterday afternoon, 
when I found from your silence that another 
night of horror lay before me. Ah, when 
did I refuse to answer a word of yours ? 
When I sent you letter after letter and tele- 
gram after telegram, and I found you meant 
to leave them all unanswered, hell could 
have held no surprises for me. But why 
should I speak of these sufferings, since I 
deserved them, and since you will at least 
permit me to see you once more, and tell 
you on my knees how repentant and 
ashamed I am of my mad conduct, on that 
horrible day? Oh, perhaps, if it were an- 
other man’s cause, I might, even on this 
paper, plead it in such a way as a little to 
allay the just and intense resentment that 
you feel. All I will say now is that you 
must remember that it was only the fear of 
being kept away from you that maddened 
me to speak those cruel words ; and that I 


200 


HIS LETTERS 


was already dazed and half beside myself 
by something unkind you had said on meet- 
ing me. 

Yet how strange it seems to me ; these 
tortures which would have made me hate 
another woman, have only made me adore 
you more. 

Letter Seventy-second, 

I waited until six o’clock, and then came 
home in despair. Home ? It has been like 
a grave to me. This morning I was nearly 
dead — your silence had almost killed me. 
Do you think it hurt me less because I 
knew I had deserved it ? Ah, yes, God 
knows that I deserved it for saying, under 
any circumstances, and no matter what I 
thought, a single harsh word to a woman so 
sweet, so sweet as you. Have you im- 
agined for an instant that I did not appre- 
ciate your infinite sweetness and your good- 
ness ? Yes, it was your very goodness, 
your heartfelt wish to be good and to make 
me good that provoked my resentment. 
Was there ever anything so horribly 
wicked ? I wanted to be bad, and I grew 


HIS LETTERS 


201 


fearfully angry, because I saw that you did 
not feel as I did ; or rather because I saw 
that you were so incomparably better a 
woman than I was a man. I thought and 
said, in my frantic folly, that I could better 
bear never to see you than to see you only 
as a friend. But I lied. I must see you. 
I could not live without it. If I wanted 
proof, these last few days have given it. 
Ah yes, they have taught me that whatever 
you wish I must submit to ; that anything, 
anything, everything is bearable but to lose 
the sight of your face and the sound of your 
voice. Ever since Thursday, when I woke 
up with a start to a sense of what I had 
done — the iniquity of it — before I got your 
sentence of banishment, I have scarcely 
slept at all. For two days I had not eaten. 
In the wildest agitation, on Thursday even- 
ing, I wrote you a few lines of incoherent 
appeal ; and I sent you a little message on 
Saturday. And I hoped, hoped with a 
fainting hope, that I might get one word 
from you on Monday. But I did not. 
And then Tuesday also passed — still si- 
lence — oh, I have been punished enough. 


202 


HIS LETTERS 


Don’t punish me any more ; I cannot sup- 
port it, I am worn out with suffering. 
Heavens! how incredible it is that one 
human being should be able, just by silence, 
to give such awful pain to another. 

When I telegraphed, this morning, I did 
not mean to write. I wanted to speak by 
word of mouth. I am so trammeled when 
I write. But I could not wait. I must 
ask you . . . don’t you care for me any 
more ? Will you never care for me any 
more ? I do not ask you to forgive me, but 
I implore you to spare me, and to still, still 
like me a little. I love you a thousand 
times more than ever. The more I suffer 
the more ardently I love. But don’t, on that 
account, make me suffer any more just now. 
Give me a little respite. Why, formerly 
I used to think myself unhappy ; but what 
was that to the unheard-of misery that I 
have gone through in the last few days ? I 
simply could not have supported it longer. 
The limit of endurance would have been 
passed to-day. 

Heavens, dearest — let me call you so once 
more — is it possible that I am going to 


HIS LETTERS 2O3 

see you again and to-morrow ? I can't be- 
lieve it. I shall not believe it until my 
hungry eyes pounce upon your lovely face. 
Oh, will that face be cold, or far worse, sad ? 
Then what will become of me ? I shall be 
speechless, but at least I can look at you. 
You know not what joy that will be to me. 

I love you, I never loved you so des- 
perately as I do at this hour. I am insane 
with the desire to see you. Would to God 
that to-morrow afternoon were here ! 

Letter Seventy -third. 

It is just half an hour, my love, my love, 
since I found your sweet, forgiving letter. I 
would to God at this moment I could be- 
dew your pretty feet with tears. Alas, I 
had thought for a moment that you were in 
the wrong, but it is always I. Oh, darling, 
with the infinite kindness which you have 
always shown to me, listen to me for a mo- 
ment, while I show how I could so fearfully 
misunderstand. Ten minutes before I 
reached your house I had obtained and read 
a heavenly letter which was still warm on 
my heart, when I met you at your door, and 


204 


HIS LETTERS 


you informed me not only that you could 
not see me at your house that day, but that 
you never would unless I came simply as a 
friend. It simply meant dismissal. I was 
dazed, bewildered, and you will remember 
that through our walk you said nothing in 
explanation, until we reached the riverside, 
after which something else occurred. Do 
you think it was wholly strange that it 
seemed to me, if I was to be sent away, that 
it might have been done by letter, and 
without exposing everything to news cater- 
ers — to the public? But about that I should 
have cared literally nothing, if I had not 
supposed that I had lost you. Ah, dear, 
my heart, I trust, is large enough for pity 
toward those who have few friends. But 
you are the only woman, sweet one, that I 
have ever loved upon this earth. You have 
taught me what love really is, a terrible, 
delirious, delicious thing. 

Letter Seventy-fourth. 

I wish — so inconsequent is man when he 
is agitated — that you might have glanced 
at my letter before seeing me. Perhaps, 


HIS LETTERS 


205 


then, you would have been to me less cold 
and implacable than I fear you will be now, 
I am afraid to see you. I am certain that I 
shall shiver when I mount your stairs. Ah, 
I know well you can be, when you choose, 
what Milton calls “terrible to approach.” 
But I shall come. I would not miss the 
chance of seeing you if I knew that I had to 
die. Say what you will to me, treat me as 
you please. At least I shall have looked at 
you and listened to your voice once more. 
What an idiot I was to say that I could not 
bear a Platonic attachment ; that to this I 
preferred nothing. Why it was a lie ; a few 
hours would have proved it to me. Any- 
thing is a whole world better than nothing. 
If I were never to see or hear from you 
again, I could not and would not live an 
hour. No consideration of compassion for 
others could restrain me, for I should not 
be master of myself. I could not bear the 
awful gloom and loneliness that would en- 
compass me. But there — I will not ask you 
to forgive me ; you do not like it, and I 
would not have you do it if you would. It 
is not your forgiveness that I want, it is 
14 


2o6 


HIS LETTERS 


your love. Yes, love, in spite of my wick' 
edness to you. I know that what I said 
was wicked. I hate myself for saying it, 
^but I loved you all the time, and, oh, you 
knew it. You knew that by your silence 
you consigned me to the most frightful tor- 
ture. You did well, dear one, to be angry, 
but don’t be angry any more. Be once 
more sweet to me. Don’t you think you 
can ? Oh, at all events, let me \ov^ you. 

Letter Seventy -fifth, 

I have your letter. Then you had cared 
for me a little ; I really was convinced you 
did not. I was frozen. I had put this and 
that together. I was sure you had cast me 
off forever. I couldn’t bear it. My God, 
what have I suffered ! Why, I love you to 
distraction. I must see you. I am going 
to take this to your door. If you are not 
at home I can leave it. Let me see you 
again ; I cannot live without you, I love 
you. 

These last days I have seen only your 
enemies. How I hate them. I hate every- 
one who stands between me and you. 


HIS LETTERS 


207 


Oh, don’t poison me again with your cold- 
ness. Don’t make me jealous. 

Oh, I am so changed ! I have been ill ; 
you will not know me. 

Dear, give me a word. 

Letter Seventy-sixth. 

Ah dearest, my own darling, my precious 
one, I am like a man that was dead and am 
alive again. When I left your door, I did 
not walk, I clove the air. The wings that 
I lost had sprouted from my shoulder ; I 
looked about me with delight and ravish- 
ment. The streets, I dare say, were black 
with mud, but to me they seemed paved 
with ivory and pearl. The men and women 
that I met were doubtless sordid and 
shabby, but to me they seemed to have 
angel’s faces, and they stared at me as if I 
were a man in a trance. One thought was 
always singing in my breast. . . . Heavens! 
what a blissful, what a heavenly reaction ! 
Since I got up to face another day, with 
conviction that I should never see her 
again, that I had lost her, lost her through 
my own mad folly. 


2o8 


HIS LETTERS 


And now, darling, I must confess it, 
though it is a feeling which a man with any 
pride despises, that it is a wild jealousy 
which greatly increases the tortures of 
separation from you. I am always on the 
look-out for material to feed that detestable 
passion. You are so inexpressibly sweet, 
I know, that I ought wholly to trust you ; 
but I can’t. When I am with you I be- 
lieve ; but alas, when I am away from you 
doubt returns. . . . How can you say that I 
don’t like you to tell me the smallest details 
of your life ? I love it, except when you 
tell me of the many men who surround 
you. You didn’t mean me to like that, did 
you ? But everything else you tell me 
delights me. Why, dearest, when you are 
in good spirits you do not so much talk as 
sing. It is like the carol of a lark. Carol 
to me to-morrow, darling ; ah yes, write to- 
morrow, sweet one, that I may get it on 
Monday, and possess my soul in patience. 
What a love you are ! There never was 
such an enchanting creature. Even your 
anger sets my brain on fire. 

I have just read your last letter for the 


HIS LETTERS 


209 


twentieth time ; and I cannot control my 
agitation. I have had to pace my floor. I 
have been thinking of your beauty, that 
beauty from which a lover might drink the 
very wine of life. Never was there so 
superb a beauty, so regal, so imperial. I 
am sick of looking at pictures and statues 
since I have seen your matchless loveliness ; 
and such vitality, such magnetism, such a 
flame of love shoots from every fiber of 
your entrancing body. 

I can write no more. Good-night ! 

Letter Seventy -seventh. 

Your dear telegram, sent to me by , 

comforted me a little ; but I have been in 
the depths since I parted with you, and I 
know not what will become of me. Yes, 
there is something of the tigress in you. 
You have the cruelty of that animal. You 
like, I think, to look at suffering. I am not 
going to speak of your rebukes, which 
wasted nearly half of four precious, irrevoc- 
able hours, except to say this : you say that 
you would not reprove me if you did not 
care for me. That is true. It is a proof of 


210 


HIS LETTERS 


love, but a sad one. Are there not others 
more becoming a sweet and noble woman 
like yourself ? might you not as well say 
that the destructive lightning is, after all, 
an outcome of the same mysterious force 
which has other products beneficent and 
beautiful, which draws man to woman, and 
which is so strangely potent in your own 
lovely body, dear one ? And does it never 
occur to you that if your reproofs have the 
power to wound me so deeply and so long 
it is because I love you so much ? Have 
you not observed how indifferent I am to 
the opinions of others, to their praise or 
their blame ? Ah, is it not almost cowardly 
to twist around a knife in a breast which is 
invulnerable except where it beats for you ? 
Then, dearest, I have a hot, fierce temper 
myself ; and I shudder lest some day I 
should be provoked, by what seems to me 
injustice, to speak again bitter words, I 
know not what, which I should all my life 
long be sorry for. But there — let me say 
no more. 

Do wear the roses in your bosom, for my 
sake, which I send. 


HIS LETTERS 


211 


Letter Seventy -eighth. 

Your heart told you that my heart would 
ache, and so you sent me that pretty box. 
The flowers have had more kissing than 
any flowers, even yours, deserve, except 
that loveliest of scarlet blossoms, your 
beautiful mouth. But you are not mine, 
you are not mine, and you never will be ! 

It was an enchanting little letter that 
came with the roses, and yet I sighed when 
I had read it. Not, dearest, that I was not 
comforted to think that you suffered a 
little, or that you suffered as well as I. 
That was a comfort. One yearns for sym- 
pathy in pain. What made me sigh was 
the unconscious revelation in the note, of 
the limitations of your feeling for me. 
Alas, I am a great philosopher in love, 
doctor in amore. I would I were not. In 
such things it is indeed folly to be wise. 
But how much happier I should be if I 
could deceive myself ! But I see so 
clearly, I see that you are so sympathetic, 
so gentle, so generous, so womanly, that 
when you find a man is really in love with 


212 


HIS LETTERS 


you, you give him a soothing species of 
responsive tenderness that would beguile 
any man, and may even for a little while 
deceive yourself. But I recognize also 
that you are the last woman in the world 
to control yourself, if Aphrodite had truly 
marked you for her own. Heavens, no ! 
one might as well attempt to chain a whirl- 
wind. I remember saying something like 
this to myself the first time I ever saw you : 
“ This entrancing creature,” I thought to 
myself, “would, I have no doubt, speak 
most sagely about duty ; ay, and make 
every word good in act. She knows, how- 
ever, that she blasphemes a little when she 
talks of love, that she takes in vain the 
name of a great and terrible god, who 
knows of no compromises, no divided 
allegiance, no escape, no rescue. This 
woman will be in love with love, rather 
than with her lover. The conflict between 
love and duty — ah me ! the wise ones 
know that such a conflict is unthinkable. 
You remember the mediaeval legend — 
Tennyson treats it, T think, in one of his 
idyls — about a pretty boy, who masquer- 


HIS LETTERS 


213 


ades in the arms of the knight invincible, 
and essays to keep a certain pass. At the 
mere sight of that terrible armor, many a 
good warrior gives way, and yet, as it 
turned out, anyone who would but sit his 
horse firmly, and poise his lance steadily, 
and confront the masquerader, would have 
overcome him at a stroke. But you see it 
was not love, the knight invincible, that 
was worsted in that fight, but only ‘one of 
his many winsome and elusive counterfeits. 

To a woman that loves there is no 
tragedy like that of love unsatisfied ; no 
spectacle so piteous as the prayerful eyes 
and wistful lips of an unrequited lover ; no 
emotion so profound, so mighty, so irresist- 
ible as the stirings and upheavings of a self- 
immolating passion. I will talk no more 
of that. I have spoken once to show you 
that I know, and so that you hereafter, 
looking back, may say, “ He knew me 
better than I knew myself. I deceived my- 
self, but he was not deceived.” I will 
speak no more on this subject, for I am 
well aware that not by argument can love 
be evoked where it exists not. If a woman 


2T4 


HIS LETTERS 


loves not, whose fault is it ? surely not 
hers, the man’s. Men ought to remember 
this then ; they would be able to retain at 
least their self-respect. 

Au revoivy sweet lady, you have prom- 
ised to see me. Do you repent already 
of the promise ? You need not. I am go- 
ing to succumb to the situation. We will 
speak only of art to-day. 

Letter Seventy-ninth, 

You have no more conception of the 
depth and height and fervor of my love for 
you than a child fifteen years old would 
have. If you had, it would be utterly 
impossible for you to misconstrue me as 
you do sometimes. There is nothing you 
could do — except one thing — that I would 
not think beautiful because you did it. 
But you are eternally accusing me of 
things that I am not guilty of. Do you 
think me capable of deliberately lowering 
myself in your esteem ? Do you suppose 
that, if there had been what you imagined, 
I could have mentioned that person’s 
name to you ? That I would not have 


HIS LETTERS 


215 


avoided it as I would the plague ? Some- 
times I am sad unto death. It is a mad- 
ness to me to think of all the years that I 
have missed. Do you think I have no 
cause to weep for them, those years, lost, 
lost, irrevocable ? O Heavens ! what a 
knell is that word ! For if I had known 
you then my life would not have been 
shadowed with the awful tragedy which 
darkened it so long, a tragedy I have never 
spoken of to a human being, which I can- 
not speak of now. Had I known you all 
would have been different. 

Do you know why I chose those par- 
ticular roses yesterday ? Do you not 
know that the tender, soft, pale pink of 
their inner petals recalled to me the blush 
on your fair cheek ; and the satin skin of 
my queen’s foot as it gleams through the 
stocking’s mesh of lace ? 

I dreamed last night we were upon our 
island. Oh, how much nicer you are upon 
our island and in my dreams than you were 
when I last saw you, than you will be to- 
day ! There, you seemed to want me, 
dearest, near you, almost as much as I 


2i6 


HIS LETTERS 


want you. You have no wish to torture 
me. On Wednesday you were of ice. 
Oh, what fibs you tell ! It is your only 
fault. You don’t keep your promises, 
madame ! You take advantage of the fact 
that your creditor is altogether too nice to 
dun you. You keep a man for weeks in a 
state of intolerable agitation, and then push 
him away with your soft palm. But alas ! 
although I am bold as a lion on that island, 
I am dreadfully afraid of you when I see 
you. 

Letter Eightieth. 

How dare people get married, and how 
without shame can they live together in 
certain close relations, when the only feel- 
ings they know are but the pale ghosts of 
mine? Did you ever see a man look at a 
woman as I look at you ? Why my eyes 
are insatiable. They never let you es- 
cape. Yes, just to look at you can almost 
quiet me. Oh, no, quiet is not the word, 
control, not quiet ; and let me tell you, 
I have gazed at you so long and tenderly 
that I foresee the time will come when 


HIS LETTERS 


217 


we shall know what we are thinking 
without the help of speech. That will be 
inconvenient for you, dear, will it not? I, 
however, shall not mind it in the least. 
I have not a thought which I would not be 
glad that my beloved should see, for I 
haven’t one that does not point to her. 

Letter Eighty-first. 

I know what you are doing is going to be 
a fine and noble piece of work. If you are 
depressed about it, that means nothing ex- 
cept that you are a woman of superior tal- 
ent, no, of genius, and therefore cannot help 
fastening your eyes upon minor shortcom- 
ings more than upon noble achievements. 
You see you are aiming at a star, and if you 
happen to miss, you will not condescend to 
notice that your arrow has far outflown all 
others that have been shot this year or last. 
It is just like you to want to return good 
for evil, to say something kind about that 
person who attacked you. 

What you said about wanting to dance 
with me touched me so much. How well I 
understood what was in your mind. It is 


2i8 


HIS LETTERS 


in my mind also. Ah, how I long to claim 
you in the sight of God and man ! How 
proud I should be of you ! You know that 
I love you as you deserve to be loved, and 
you know also that I deserve to be loved 
even by such a glorious, magnificent daugh- 
ter of passion as yourself. I live only in 
the present and the future. I never lived 
before. My past is dead, sealed with seven 
seals. Ah, do not you unseal it ! Remem- 
ber only that I love for the first time, that I 
love to distraction. 

I must thank you, loveliest and dear- 
est, for the sweet letter I got yesterday, the 
first since I pressed your perfect hand at 
parting, and watched my goddess pace away. 
How well I understand every phase and 
current of your exquisite yet ardent nature ! 
I thank God that I am qualified to under- 
stand a being at once so delicate, so noble, 
and so impassioned. Yes, I know why you 
seem to shiver at one moment, and to shrink 
half fearful from him that adores you ; and 
in the next moment yield your spirit in the 
abandonment of love and faith. All this 
time I can think only of two things — how 


HIS LETTERS 


219 


you looked when I last saw you, and how 
you will look when I see you next. 

A bientdty dme de ma vie / 

Letter Eighty-second. 

Oh, would to God, my darling, that we 
were living together in some enchanted 
island, where it might be my blessed privi- 
lege to be your servant, to do everything 
for you, you lovely little dear ! It is agony 
to me to know that anyone else has the 
right to do the smallest thing for you. 
Let me thrust that thought away ! Why 
do I so often use diminutives to you, such 
a tall and stately creature ? Ah, Heloise — 
Helo you say is the pet name, what a 
sweet name — those little words fall instinc- 
tively from the pen of love, when it is a 
man who holds it. Yes, it is the deep- 
planted virile instinct that forces him — if 
only to soothe his wounded heart — to 
think of the beloved one as utterly depend- 
ent on him, as wholly, entirely his own. 
My pride is tortured by our present situ- 
ation, and what balm it would be if I 
could claim you in the sight of man and 


220 


HIS LETTERS 


Heaven. And yet that is the weakest of the 
reasons why I should not be satisfied with 
being the lover of a princess, but should 
long to be her husband. Heavens, what it 
would mean to me to be absolutely certain 
that I should see you every day, that every 
night you might be near me ! How could 
we ever know satiety ? It is only common 
souls that know it. Did Antony and Cleo- 
patra know it ? Oh, what ecstacy it would 
be to work for thee ! You asked me 
once how you had changed me. Why the 
change goes to the very root of things. 
Before I saw you I considered my life a 
failure, manqude, and I was dying of atrophy 
of heart, of the collapse of hope. But 
since I have the rapture of knowing you, 
how can I think my life a failure ? A glori- 
ous triumph, rather, a towering elevation. 
Ah, you have given me such energy, such 
quickened instinct, such vibrating sympa- 
thies, such an intense interest in human life. 
What do I not owe you ? pleasure only ? 
the divinest that ever mortal tasted ? Oh, 
no ; that is only a fraction of my debt. 

I boil with indignation when I hear of 


HIS LETTERS 


221 


the silly, waspish, and brutal attacks upon 
your work. Listen to me ; I shall speak 
soberly and disinterestedly. I know as 
much as most of those who venture to name 
you. I insist that this single picture, the 
first that I ever saw, would have given the 
artist a great reputation. There is in all 
you do skill, insight, sympathy, imagina- 
tion, pathos, and infectious life breathes 
on your canvas. You would never be 
attacked were you a poor, unknown, un- 
envied person ; but you are a great lady, 
beautiful, admired, puissante, and it cuts 
to the quick a lot of less successful 
aspirants for fame, who have borne the 
burden and heat of the day, to see you at 
the eleventh hour, by virtue of the added 
splendor of your talent, stretch forth a 
shapely, languid hand, and calmly pluck 
the guerdon for which they have perspired 
in vain. Ah, pity the poor things, my own ; 
they but disclose their own sufferings. 
They cannot harm you. . . . All the really 
competent, penetrating critics who have in- 
tellect enough to be candid, and who can 

afford the luxury of self-respect, have said 
15 


222 


HIS LETTERS 


as much and more and better. You know 
that to be so. Then do not let these ants 
have the satisfaction of stinging a being 
whose mind and heart they are too grovel- 
ing to understand. 

Dearest, don’t be angry with me for hav- 
ing sent you such a scorching letter yester- 
day. I should not send such missiles ; I 
swear that I will do so no more. But I 
had been parted from you so long, and the 
mere glimpse that I had of you heaped fuel 
on the flame. Ah, what torment in Dante’s 
catalogue was comparable to what I suffer, 
to know you so near and not to see you, 
not to be able to fall at your feet. Yet I 
hope that you read that letter ; although I 
know full well it exists no more. 

Letter Eighty-third, 

I have your letter, the second. Ah, dear- 
est, how beautifully you write to me. I have 
reproached myself far otherwise. There 
are certain moods in which I am whirled 
like a leaf in a storm. I have sworn to my- 
self that in such moods I will run from a 
pen instead of seizing it. They are not my 


HIS LETTERS 


223 


only moods, ah, no ; nor are they dominant. 
I give you my word of honor that if you 
deliberately sa)^ to me — by letter, not by 
word of mouth, for I should need time to 
collect myself — that to make me happy 
would make you unhappy, there is such 
boundless love and worship in my soul for 
my darling, that I could be to you what 
Dante was to Beatrice, or Petrarch to 
Laura. Oh, yes, I could — I feel it — I could 
live upon your letters — and never, to my 
latest breath, would a thought stray from 
her that I adored. This is true ; it is 
heaven s truth. I love you, dear, as a saint 
might wish to be loved, and if I love you in 
other ways, and sometimes speak of them, 
it is because I see you so little, and get just 
enough to make me frantic. Do I not, 
thou darling of my soul ? Oh, my God ! I 
cannot help it, it is not my fault but fate’s, 
that since I have seen you and touched 
your hand I have desired you fiercely. 

But if you misjudge me I will kill myself. 
This is no idle threat ; it is the cold state- 
ment of a fact. 


224 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Eighty-fourth, 

Ah, sweet one, never have I loved you 
more devotedly than at this moment. Your 
two beautiful letters of Saturday and Sun- 
day, enclosed in one envelope, have just 
come into my yearning hand. Never, I 
think, since writing was invented, did woman 
write to man words at once so tender and 
so intoxicating. Dear, I can never have 
enough of them. I love you so madly, am 
so utterly, completely thine, that I cannot 
be told too frequently that you care for me 
a little. You have not, have you, any con- 
ception of what rapture you give me with a 
tender word ? I love you more and more, 
daily and hourly ; though I thought months 
ago that my heart was swelled to bursting. 
But there is no end to the devotion that 
you evoke. You speak to me in every 
beautiful sight, in each delightful tone and 
odor, in each enchanting or elevating 
thought. You inform the atmosphere with 
hope and love. Would to God that at 
this very instant your little bronzed shoe 
were on my neck. But what does my dar- 


HIS LETTERS 


225 


ling mean about pitfalls? Do you appre- 
hend danger from any source ? Enlighten 
me. I do not wonder you are distrustful. 

So you didn’t like Mrs. C.’s black eyes ; 
no more did I. To think that you should 
fancy that the man you stooped to could 
admire eyes of any tint but yours ! But 
the poor thing who led such a dreadful life 
with C. had, I believe, beauty as well as 
remarkable intellect, and arch, roguish, be- 
witching ways. And in these respects she 
was a little like my darling. Didn’t you 
like me to think that ? I couldn’t help 
thinking it. Whenever I read of anyone 
attractive I say to myself : yes, she reminds 
me a little of her, as the moon reminds one 
of the sun. 

Dearest, I have pressed my lips long and 
passionately to a little place in your letter, 
pressed them till my head spun round. 
Would that at this moment I could put my 
lips as ardently to your lovely hand. Good- 
night. 


226 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Eighty-fifth. 

I really cannot see why I might not have 
a cup of tea with you to-morrow. I do not 
think that your explanations explain. You 
simply don’t want me to come ; that is all. 
I don’t believe you ever mean me to come 
again. This is a thought that suddenly 
has come to me. If it ripen to a convic- 
tion I shall go away. I shall go at once, 
and put three hundred miles between us. 
Fool that I am, I should come back the 
next day, to learn whether you had cared 
much. But seriously, I think that precious 
opportunities, never perhaps to be regained, 
are being lost. I call them opportunities ; 
perhaps you call them pitfalls to be assidu- 
ously shunned. ... You were very hand- 
some to-day. I do not know that I ever 
saw your eyes and lips more beautiful. 
And what bewitching little shoes ! They 
did entire justice to your exquisite foot 
I envy the shoe-maker that made them. 
His must have been a labor of love. I 
have told you before, have I not, how much 
I like your hand? How white and smooth 


HIS LETTERS 


227 


and strong it is ! And it is with this hand 
that you write to me ! Think of me at 
least sometimes, and comfort me by saying 
that you do. For hours after I get a letter 
from you, if it is a kind one, I am in bliss. 

When I come in what balm to senses 
and to heart to find upon my desk one of 
your dear messages turning up its sweet 
face to be kissed ; scenting the air with its 
faint, fine, familiar fragrance. Still carol to 
me ; my ear thirsts for thy melody. In my 
heart is your nest builded. 

Would I have you stoop to the make- 
shifts of other women ? If I said yes, my 
angel, I should be the basest man on earth. 
A man permitted by some relenting mood of 
Heaven to find a blossom of Eden in his 
path, only to tread it in the mire. Ah ! 
that, indeed, would be turning from heaven, 
hellward. I know, then, the love which 
you awaken in me is the most blessed 
influence my life has ever known. It would 
be appalling to think it were otherwise with 
you. 

Say that, for you also, our intercourse 
has not been wholly wanting in stimulus, in 


228 


HIS LETTERS 


sympathy, n awaking to the fullness and 
beauty and ecstasy of living. 


Letter Eighty-sixth, 

Thursday Evening. 

It is such a joy, such a stimulus to talk 
to you ; and you are so generous, in all 
you say of others. This is real majesty. 
Do you think I do not appreciate it ? 
I could not now insult you by the shadow 
of a suspicion. Ah, don’t imagine that 
trust on my part has anything in com- 
mon with the marital sense of security, 
which in all ages has provoked derision, and 
which is apt to create carelessness about the 
treasure it has obtained. I cannot even im- 
agine remissness in a real lover. He would 
deserve to lose his idol. I would never lose 
mine from such a cause as that. 

I should like to kiss your pretty hands 
this minute, to let my famished eyes rest 
upon your loveliness. Ah, I wish that I 
might eat and drink of thee. 


HIS LETTERS 


229 


Letter Eighty -seventh, 

I worried afterward over the thought 
that you might not like my sending you 
those papers all tumbled and badly out of 
shape. A man can never feel certain that 
some rough, careless act of his may not 
have jarred upon the delicate nerves and 
senses of a woman. Ah, you send things 
neatly folded and tied with white silk ! 

How fortunate that you are a femme art- 
iste, as well as a great lady, that in your art 
you may speak to the world. Why, you 
can be a blessing to mankind ? 

Perhaps the blessing would have been 
more unmixed had the genius, in your case, 
been allied with less beauty. I have not 
quite made up my mind whether for me in 
particular it was fortunate. Since I have 
known you I have had so much torment 
and so little rapture. Last night I could 
not help breaking into wild, harsh laughter 
at your injunction to sleep well. Ah, be- 
fore I knew you, I could do that, but you, 
fair lady, have murdered sleep. 

Later — When I said I could do better 


230 


HIS LETTERS 


than Ruy Bias, I meant, of course, the man 
described, not Hugo, the describer. There 
are two weak points in the conception of 
Ruy Bias, and it is strange that Hugo did 
not see them. The lack of personal dig- 
nity, and the exhibition of physical courage 
is a little too tardy. As to the dignity, I 
do not refer to the man’s putting on a 
lackey’s coat, and afterward consenting to 
personate Don Cesar de Bazan. Both acts 
were dignified, ennobled by their motive. 
They were done that he might be brought 
near the woman that he loved. But having 
become an equerry, he should have stopped 
there. By becoming prime minister, he 
would see less of her rather than more. Be- 
sides, it was known to him, and notorious to 
everyone, that his sudden rise was due to 
the queen. He should have accepted from 
her nothing smaller than herself. Then 
what began like an idyl would not have 
been converted into what looked like a prof- 
itable speculation. As for the marquis, 
his life should not have been spared until 
Donna Maria was almost irreparably com- 
promised. He should have been choked to 


HIS LETTERS 


231 


death in that earlier scene where he bids 
Ruy Bias, now prime minister, shut a win- 
dow. But what, you may ask, would have 
become of the play ? I don’t know and I 
don’t care. The play might have been 
spoiled, but Ruy Bias would have been 
nicer. Plays were made for men, not 
men for plays. And that reminds me as to 
the '' art for art ” canon. I tried hard to 
get at that in an essay upon art, which I 
wrote at college, when you, sweet one, were 
still casting furtive glances at your dolls. 
I remember saying that it was a very 
good formula for the artist, “art for art”; 
and that the lawyers had devised a like 
one, “ law for law.” But after all, man 
made art a law for himself. He had not 
the slightest notion of fashioning idols of 
wood and stone, and so I suggested that 
perhaps the largest, safest, and sound- 
est formula was “ art for man.” 

I had hoped to get a little line this morn- 
ing, with an answer to the question that 1 
whispered; but there is none. You are 
angry, are you ? Oh, say you are not. You 
could not be long angry with me, could you ? 


232 HIS LETTERS 

Do you remember telling me once you 
wished me to do something great, some- 
thing for humanity ? That touched me 
deeply ; but your hand fell upon an open 
wound, although it fell like a snowflake. 
Sometime I will tell you of a hope I once 
had. But now it is dead. 

Letter Eighty-eighth, 

I am absolutely certain that not a soul 
looked at the bride to-day. How could 
they when your loveliness was en vue ! 
Doesn’t everybody notice that you are 
en beautd? I want you to tell me what is 
said to you, particularly by the shrewd and 
observant women. 

Just think of it; I have not had a line 
from you, and this is my fourth letter. 
You don’t appreciate me at all. You don’t 
seem to realize that nobody else can get 
one letter out of me. Well, I am justly 
punished for my discourtesy to others. 
Now I know what it means and how it 
feels to write four letters to another’s one. 
I am becoming compassionate. 

If you had not given me that fragrant 


HIS LETTERS 


233 


little bit of ribbon, I don’t know what I 
should have done. How lucky it is 
for me that you are wise as well as 
beautiful ! 

I have been thinking since I saw you 
last, of the impression you made upon me 
when I saw you at your house, in January. 
Of course you were a splendid, stately 
creature, in the very prime of your beauty, 
but you were cold and indifferent. How 
indeed could you be otherwise ? I said to 
myself : would she have been different if 
she had let me see her earlier ? . . . And 
then I asked myself : I wonder if this gor- 
geous woman has ever loved, really loved ? 
She could love ; that is evident in every line 
of her figure, in her lips and in her eyes ; 
but has she ? And then I cursed myself, 
for I felt that I should never please you. 
I was but too painfully conscious that I did 
not please you then. Never in my life did 
I feel such self-contempt and hopelessness 
as when I came down your stair. But 
once ensconced safely in my cab, a strange 
reaction came. All at once the thought 
swept over me that, after all, I was a man 


234 


HIS LETTERS 


and you were a woman ; and that to lose 
the first heat did not necessarily mean the 
loss of the race. And then my pride and 
my virility came back to me, and I swore, 
swore the oath that I would tame that 
superb creature, and make her care for me. 
It was as if some spirit had breathed in my 
ear what Don Salluste whispers to Ruy 
Bias, at the end of the first act of the 
drama. 

I measured the difficulties to be sur- 
mounted ; I saw plainly that your first im- 
pressions would be against me. But I 
remembered also what the Duchess of 
Devonshire said of John Wilkes — that the 
handsomest man in London had but five 
minutes’ start of him. Yes, I had got off 
very badly ; but in a long race, wind and 
limb might tell. Ah, this was a feature of 
the romance that you know not, though I 
always meant to tell you. 

Letter Eighty-ninth, 

... I roamed about the sidewalks over- 
looking D’s. for hours, like the peri shut 
out from the gates of paradise, wishful of 


HIS LETTERS 


235 


one last glimpse. Do you remember 
Thackeray’s 

Outside the porch sometimes I linger? 

Alas, there was no glimpse for me, and 
I chided myself for doing what perhaps 
would have displeased you. Are you dis- 
pleased ? 

Heavens ! how I want to see you to- 
morrow, in the white gown and hat ! You 
will be a tearing belle, but that you always 
are. I should like to see the expression in 
your eyes during the marriage service. I 
wish that at a certain moment my eyes 
could encounter yours. There would be 
tears in mine. But there, let me not sigh 
for the moon. You will, at all events, some 
time let me see you in your bravery ; yes, I 
count on that. Dearest, don’t flirt ! But 
if you really cannot help it, entouree as you 
will be, be general, I beg of you, in your 
distribution of sweet looks and fetching 
ways. I know you will dance, and I hate 
the men who will be privileged to touch 
your hand. What right have they to touch 
it? It is not theirs, it is not theirs. 


236 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Ninetieth, 

... It is incredible how much I care 
for your respect. Would to God that I 
were more worthy of your ennobling influ- 
ence. Yes, dearest, it is not your fault 
you cannot do for me what the goddesses 
did for their mortal lovers — make me a 
demigod. 

I glanced, on Sunday, at what S. 
writes about naturalism in art. His 
notions seem correct enough, but they 
flash in the pan. Nobody will read him. 
He is dull ; he infects nobody. He does 
not evince the gift of startling the mind, 
firing curiosity and riveting attention. Oh, 
to-day, besides the lost letter, there was 
another lovely missive from thee. You 
know how to bless as well as rule ; it is the 
prerogative of goddesses. How ashamed I 
felt at my vexation of last Friday, when I 
imagined myself to be ill-used. Yes, you 
say truly that there was a time when I 
would gladly have written ten letters for 
a word from you ; whereas now I hold 
myself cheated if I don’t get one for one. 


ms LETTERS 


237 


Does that prove that I love you less or 
more ? I think the difference is simply 
an indelible mark of a difference in the 
stage of love. It is certain that for a 
single indulgent glance, Ruy Bias would 
twenty times have sc<a^led the spike-topped 
fence of the queen’s garden, to lay upon 
the bench a flower that recalled to her the 
fields of Neuberg. It is no less certain 
that when his idol had confessed she cared 
for him, he wanted far more, and claimed 
it. Do you not suppose that she expected 
it, and would have been surprised had he 
been less exacting and less clamorous ? I 
know not. Do you — you resolve this prob- 
lem in the deep lore of love ? I am sure 
that it must have been many times debated 
in the Parlernents d' Amour at Aix and at 
Toulouse. Ah, dearest, you seem to repro- 
duce those ardent and voluptuous days. I 
write in prose, but the thought of your sur- 
passing loveliness of which I dream, of all 
the beauty which exists from your love-lit 
eyes to your rosy heel, ought to lend to 
prose the music and the flame of song. 

Ah, sweet one, do I “suit” you ? It is 

16 


238 


HIS LETTERS 


ecstasy to hear you say it. I love, I wor- 
ship thee, with every upward soaring of my 
soul ! 


Letter Ninety -first, 

Sunday Morning. 

Even you cannot imagine what a joy it is 
to me to know that you like the subject for 
a picture on which you are now engaged. 
If that alone should fail, it would be due to 
the refractory material, and I should only 
adore you more for thinking better of it 
than it deserves. What you are really 
doing is to tell over again the story of Endy- 
mion in modern guise. Aye, I was* well 
inspired when I divined you to be Artemis. 
Her history is indeed thine. In that love- 
liest of Greek myths, however, there is one 
thing that is hard to understand : That the 
goddess, when she stooped to look kindly 
on a mortal, would be irresistible is plain 
enough ; but what drew her to Endymion ? 
He was only a shepherd on Mount Latmos. 
Was it because, with her celestial intuition, 
she saw that he alone of mortals had divined 
her ? It would seem that even a goddess 


HIS LETTERS 


239 


may well wish to be understood. To the 
dwellers on the cold heights of Olympus 
the bliss of sympathy had been denied. 
That is why so many of them were tempted 
to prefer the warmer earth to heaven. . . 

How little confidence have observing men 
in the perfect refinement of women, even 
when they have had consummate advantages 
of birth and breeding ; and how much less 
when their position may be largely due to 
accident ! This even from the physical view- 
point ; and how much less likely is a lover 
to discover in his beloved a flawless refine- 
ment of the intellect, the heart, the soul. 
Nay, there is but one such living, and he 
that pens this word is her adorer. Alas ! a 
hopeless adorer, neglecting his sheep upon 
the slopes of Latmos, and straining his eyes 
skyward for the advent of Luna and her 
silver bow. Will he never then be allowed 
to hope ? Perhaps, some evening, when 
the earth is bathed in silver radiance, and 
the air is cool with the first breath of autumn, 
and he, poor watcher, has dropped asleep, 
worn out with invoking the vision that 
comes never, he may feel a soft, warm touch 


240 


HIS LETTERS 


upon his hand, and awake to find himself in 
paradise. Surely such a hope need not be 
all a dream. When I think of all that has 
happened since, a year ago, a lovely lady 
traced upon a card some words that you 
remember ; when I think of this, my faith 
in the future is quite boundless. 

Do not chill it. Let me keep it to live 
upon while you are gone. 

Your Slave. 

Letter Ninety-second, 

I live in dread of some portentous inci- 
dent, some sinister reaction in your mind, 
that shall have the most direct and dread- 
ful bearing on my own fate. Oh, shall you 
do this thing, shall you cast me off ? Can 
you not bear with me one hour ? Shall you 
deny me a moment’s happy dreaming be- 
tween a sleep and a sleep ? It may be that 
this presentiment is groundless, but it haunts 
me. Did you ever see a man weep ? It is 
a repulsive sight. I am glad you did not 
see me, last night, as I remembered what 
you had just told me, that you were not so 
far from me but that I might have seen you 


HIS LETTERS 


241 


that detestable summer. O God ! can a 
man be so blind as that ? The thought of 
it makes one curse his Maker. But then 
. . . I have seen you at last. 

We needs must love the highest when we 
see it. Thou art the highest and most 
human too. 


Letter Ninety -third, 

I wonder how much you care for me. 
All day and all night I ask myself that 
question, for my dreams even are preoc- 
cupied. I always fall back on the con- 
clusion that your feeling, whatever it be, is 
not a hundreth part so deep and intense 
as mine. It cannot be ; it is impossible ! 
There are reasons why it cannot. But I 
would rather have it, pale as it sometimes 
seems to me, than all the ardor of the love- 
liest woman I ever saw before or heard of. 
So I am happy after a fashion, happier, far 
happier than I ever was before. 

But what do you mean about that man 
T. ? Of course I know him very well, and 
he has cause to be glad I do. But if you 
believe that I could allow any man living to 


242 


HIS LETTERS 


Speak your name to me, I could not see you 
arain ; for such distrust I could not bear. 
You must expect to hear things. Everyone 
does. The only question of importance is 
what you believe. 

Now I have written six letters to two from 
you, but one of yours is worth a dozen of 
mine. I used not to count in that way. I 
used to think that a word from me was 
worth a hundred from another — I mean 
men — I never wrote to a person of your 
sex. But now it is quite different. I am 
thankful for what I can get. And what a 
letter I did get this morning ! Oh, my be- 
loved, I can never burn it ! Ah, let me 
keep this one ; it will tear me to burn it ! 

Only this morning, as I was reading at 
an open window, a poor creature, trying 
to earn bread honestly, came and shouted 
something about knives to mend.” I was 
chasing a reluctant thought, and in my irri- 
tation bade him crossly to go away. And 
then in an instant the thought came to me. 
Oh, if she had heard me, her lovely, tender 
lips might quiver ! ” and the tears came to 
my eyes, and I went to the window, and 


HIS LETTERS 


243 


called the man back, and gave him some- 
thing. It is always thus now. You see you 
are making me quite too good for this 
earth ! Everybody can get anything from 
me they wish now, and I shall soon be a 
pauper. 

About Cleopatra ; I should want the 
strongest evidence to convince me that the 
coin you saw bore the face of the Cleo- 
patra— our Cleopatra — she that in her girl- 
hood detained the great Julius a year in 
Alexandria, at the very crisis of his fate, and 
afterward made the world seem well lost to 
Antony. G.’s scholarship was picked up 
piecemeal, late in life, and had large gaps in 
it. As a matter of fact, Cleopatra was a 
common name in the Ptolemaic family. 
Half a dozen princesses of that name had 
coins struck in their honor. That mummy, 
by the way, which was found, and from 
which such injurious deductions were drawn, 
was not her mummy, but another Cleo- 
patra’s. We know from contemporary evi- 
dence a lot about the famous beauty. She 
did not have a big nose or thick lips, but 
was of the purest Greek type. 


244 


HIS LETTERS 


Do I like long-nosed women ? Of course 
not. Such a feature may go well enough 
with beauty of a forbidding type, but what 
artist or what lover would ascribe it to the 
goddess of desire ? 

As to the Jewish type, it suited Jael or 
Judith, but the fate of Holofernes would 
never have befallen me, for I would never 
have gone to sleep in the tent of that hand- 
some but sinister daughter of Israel. 

Do you want to know what kind of nose 
I like best and dream of ? Run straight to 
your mirror ; there it is ! 

Letter Ninety-fourth, 

My Sweet Darling: 

I like parts of your second letter, but I 
loved the whole of the first, which was 
a beautiful and noble and delicious letter. 
It struck me in a hundred places at once. 
Ah, it is wonderful how every part of my 
nature answers to your touch, and that one 
who can rouse such passionate madness 
can, also, in a thousand ways, invigorate and 
elevate. Oh, this is love indeed, this aston- 
ishing emotion that masters the whole being 


HIS LETTERS 


245 


and makes you in one and the same instant 
want the beloved one and worship her ! 
Incredible combination of desire and of 
reverence ! One tear of yours kills me with 
sadness. One touch of your hand thrills 
me with an ecstasy that makes me yearn 
to live forever. Yet I sometimes think 
that with such power as you possess over 
me, you should be more merciful. Why 
do you taunt me with what you have taught 
me to repent of? Why are you harsher 
than God ? By Heaven, I am sorry from 
my soul that I ever looked at a human 
being before I saw you. I don’t mean to 
call myself a saint, though you know how 
St. Augustine and St. Ignatius Loyola lived 
in their youth. Yet I do mean that since I 
have loved you I am just that. If to you 
alone I seem not always saintlike, it is be- 
cause a Platonic attachment between a man 
and a woman seems to me impossible. But 
do you imagine I fancied my princess to be 
like the women whom the decayed Parisian 
cads imagine to be ladies ? Do you imagine 
me to be like the men whom the same 
writers depict as gentlemen ? They are very 


246 


HIS LETTERS 


clever, these writers. No one appreciates 
their cleverness more than I ; but it takes 
more than cleverness to be or to understand 
a gentleman. Ah, well, darling, never tor- 
ture me again ! Compared with St. Augus- 
tine’s my life has been as white as snow ; 
and since I have known you there is no 
better man alive than I. No, I could not 
understand Browning’s remembering that 
early love so long. He could not have 
loved Miss Barrett so much as he thought, 
and remembered that. To me the whole 
past is a blank ; I seem only to have lived 
since I loved you, my love, my precious 
one, my treasure ! 

I am going down to the sea ; I want to 
sit where I can see the ocean and hear some 
music, and think of my beloved. It would 
kill me to lose you now ! Good-by. 

Letter Ninety-fiftJu 

I came down here last night, at nine 
o’clock, so that I might meet no one. I 
have had my breakfast and dinner sent up 
to my room, and here I have sat, sometimes 
hearing some music, and always looking out 


HIS LETTERS 


247 


Upon the water, thinking, thinking of whom 
do you suppose ? After I leave you I must 
steep myself in nature. I think I told you 
that after leaving you the other day, I had 
myself taken up the river. W ell, in passing 
through the park, a man whom I knew 
stopped me and asked me where I was go- 
ing. I was sunk in a deep reverie, I had no 
wits about me, and I stammered that I was 
going to dine at the riverside. He at once 
proposed to go with me, and so out of my 
mind was I — whose fault was it, dear ? — that 
1 could make no objection. How I hated 
that man, loathed the drive and dinner that 
followed ! At long intervals he would say. 
You haven’t spoken a word in ten minutes, 
I am afraid I bore you.” Then, after 
another pause, “ Really I begin to think 
that my room would be better than my 
company ! ” And I wanted to be alone, as 
I am here, to-night ; for I would rather 
crush my lips against your lovely foot-prints 
in the sand, than be myself the idol of any 
other woman on the earth. 


248 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter Ninety-sixth, 

I got your telegram ; it went straight to 
my heart. Ah, I begin to think that you 
believe I love you as you ought to be 
loved ! 

Yes, I was sad when I first saw you ; my 
heart was very heavy. I doubted — I 
doubted — you see, my darling — now I am 
going to tell you — you are so much younger 
than I — how I curse fate that I did not see 
you earlier ! I will never speak of this 
again ; I could not. I think that you do 
care for me a little ; how much, how much I 
know not. But I know that your presence 
is like the sunshine, and that hope and joy 
bloom in it. Only with you do I feel — I 
don’t mean with you, but away from you — 
that dreadful sinking of the heart. I know 
not how it is, but I seem able to make other 
women as young as you, beloved, forget 
that I am older than they. But with you I 
have dark misgivings. 

There, I have unbosomed my heart. 
Don’t ever speak of this ; I could not bear 
it. For, alas ! a man cannot add a cubit to 


HIS LETTERS 


249 


his Stature, nor subtract a decade from his 
age. You are in the most splendid bloom 
of youth. I almost wish that you were not. 
And yet it would be wicked to wish to mar 
such a perfect masterpiece of nature and of 
training. I almost wish I had not said this. 
Don’t ever remind me of it. Never would 
I forgive you. I am too proud, I think, for 
my own good. I cannot write any more 
now ; I feel depressed. I sometimes wish 
that I were dead. But while I live my 
whole heart is yours, if you care for it. 
Adieu ! 

Letter Ninety-seventh, 

I said that I looked back on Q. as on the 
loveliest corner of the earth. There are 
other places de par le monde where every- 
thing bears the cachet of exquisite taste ; 
but what other place is pervaded with the 
subtle fascinations of such a peerless, re- 
sistless personality ? It is because all 
is radiant and redolent of its sweet 
mistress, that every man sensitively organ- 
ized must inhale its atmosphere with the 
keenest delight. 


250 


HIS LETTERS 


Ah, when shall I forget our walk upon 
the shore, and the prints of your slender 
feet upon the white sand ? I stooped and 
kissed them ; and the stroll through the 
sighing woods, and the drives through the 
lonely lanes — what memories ! Do you 
know, I have always had my share of pride 
— without any solid reason — but of late I 
have had a tremendous accession of that 
feeling since I have heard that a brilliant 
and lovely lady considered me a clever 
man, and had even let it be understood 
that she thought me rather nice than other- 
wise. Ah, that, if I were an emperor, 
would make me feel myself more imperial. 

What a charming nook that was in your 
drawing room, where we sat, one evening, 
among the cool shadows ! Ah, would that 
I might be privileged to make my vows 
there, though their temperature would ill 
befit the place ! 

What a little world this is, as we were 
saying ! I found in my letter-box a letter 
from W. It seems that there is there 
a nest of your enemies ; the only enemies 
that so sweet a woman could have — those 


ms LETTERS 


251 


engendered by sheer envy. Mrs. man- 

ages to secrete more than her fair share 
of venom. She has tried to do you harm. 

Ah, when shall I see thee, lovely one, 
again ? the sweetest, most generous, most 
forgiving, elevating, and inspiring creature 
that is drawing vital air. 

Ah, I pine for the sight of her handwrit- 
ing, since I cannot see the face that is so 
dear to me. 

A u revoir, ma bieri aimde / 

Letter Ninety-eighth, 

You say that you believe women to be 
more charming now than they ever were. 
That may be, but the stage setting is not so 
rare. A really great lady like yourself, for 
instance, would have had a much nicer time 
in Rome, about the year 50 of our era. 
What luxury, what magnificence, what ex- 
quisite refinement, what artistic embellish- 
ment and intensifying of life ! Ah, yes ; you 
should have lived when with your walk, or 
with your faint, mysterious smile, you would 
have made those superb Roman women de-- 
sire to poison you, and thus remove you 


252 


HIS LETTERS 


from their path. By the way, you know 
that lovely bust that the ignorant call a 
bust of Clytie, and imagine to be an ideal 
head and bosom? Well, there is scarcely 
any doubt that it is a portrait bust — the 
portrait of Poppaea Sabina, as she looked 
when Nero took her away from Otho. 
There is about her lips and chin the same 
extraordinary and haunting combination of 
unslaked curiosity and passion which is 
so strongly suggested upon your lips. I 
wonder if you can detest traveling by rail 
as much as I do. To me it seems the quin- 
tessence of our nineteenth century vul- 
garity, our sham civilization. Oh, what 
a funny thing our vaunted progress must 
seem to an on-looker from an elder planet. 
Mars, for instance ! We have harnessed 
the lightning mainly for the purpose of en- 
abling a stock gambler to signal his con- 
federate ; and we have coerced the genii of 
steam to permit a commercial traveler, with 
his little box of samples, to go from New 
York to San Francisco in five days. It 
.took five weeks for a trireme to carry a play 
of Euripides, or a dialogue of Plato, from 


HIS LETTERS 


253 


Athens to Syracuse ; but when it got there 
it stayed. Oh, yes, it stayed, and has out- 
lasted the Roman roads that seemed im- 
perishable ; and it will outlive our railways 
of which we are so proud. 

Ah, go on ! Have courage, do better, bet- 
ter, nobler and nobler work ; work that men 
and women will never allow to die. You 
can do it, you will do it, you shall do it — a 
trophy worthy of the lovely hand that reared 
it! 

Letter Ninety-ninth, 

Heavens, how I love you ! Do you real- 
ize what it means to absorb a man’s heart as 
you have mine ? And now you have written 
me a second letter, when you could not 
have yet received my first. How am I to 
repay this ? I will consecrate to you whole 
years of worship — years unexpected that I 
will wrest from death. 

Of course common people sneer at Z., and 
particularly at an act which their spiritual 
atrophy and cowardice could not imitate. 
But you and I can pity and understand him. 

I have sent you to-day the biography 
17 


254 


HIS LETTERS 


which you asked for. It is indispensable, if 
we agree with Sainte-Beuve, that we must 
be acquainted with an authors life if we 
wish to understand his books. The purport 
of Ibsen s biography may be summed up in 
a sentence: so far as the “dramas of the 
day ” are concerned, Ibsen has presented 
on the stage, and under the conditions of 
dramatic art, very much the same view of 
foreign society, and the principles which 
actuate it, which Tolstoi didactically sets 
forth in “ My Religion.” Voilh tout. 

Ah, dearest, the miniature ! the minia- 
ture ! thank God that you remembered it ; 
it will make all the difference in the world to 
me. How could a photograph render you 
who should be painted ? Don’t you see 
that I love you, love you as only men love 
once in a hundred years, and that I must 
have something which has life and color to 
gaze upon in the long vigils of the night. 
Ah, yes ; and you say, my beloved, you are 
going to bless me with the gift. 

Letter One Hundredth, 

Thank God that you did not send me 


HIS LETTERS 


255 


that first long letter of which you speak. I 
know that it would have killed me. Ah, 
yes ; that is no conventional phrase ; it 
would be easy for you to kill me. All you 
would have to do would be to be silent ; 
that would take away the wish to live, and 
when that is gone some live not long. But 
you will not do what would be so easy; will 
you, dear ? You will spare me yet a little 
while. Say you will, say that you will 
write, so that I may find a word from you 
when I return from this long unhappy 
journey. What is there that you wish 
which I would not do ? Why, I would not 
even ask to see you if you should say that 
you did not wish it ; but for Gods sake, for 
my sake, if you even care for me a little, 
don’t say that, anything but that ! You will 
not, will you ? Say you will not, queen of 
my soul. Oh, let me thank you again for 
not sending me the first long letter. I can 
guess what it contained, because my soul is 
not utterly unworthy of your own. I can 
guess, but you could never guess, what the 
effect of such a letter would have been on 
me. I could not have borne it. I should 


256 


HIS LETTERS 


have loved you to distraction all the same, 
but I should have hated and loathed myself, 
and under such conditions I could not exist. 
But you were merciful — yes, you are merci- 
ful. From the first I knew you to be the 
sweetest woman in the world. You are not 
a tigress, you are an angel ; the only angel 
that ever gave wings to me. I am always 
on my knees to you. You know it, and the 
angel held you from dealing me a deadly 
blow. Don’t ever want to kill me again. 
If you do, I shall know it in some strange, 
subtle way, and you will not need to speak. 

Letter One Hundred a7id First. 

I have this moment returned, having 
again traveled all night, in order to be at 
least near you a few hours earlier. You 
need not change the address of those dar- 
ling letters until next Monday. Oh, dear- 
est, I am almost dead with yearning. 
There has not been a second of my waking 
hours in which I have not thought of you, 
and of sleep I have had indeed but little. 
The visions that rise before me when the 
lights have been put out are not by any 


HIS LETTERS 


257 


means conducive to slumber. Strange to 
say, most of these scenes seem to be en- 
acted upon an island — some enchanted 
island of the .^gean, like that to which the 
prudent Thetis bore Achilles dressed in 
girl’s clothes — a visitant whose perform- 
ances are said to have been regarded as 
scandalous and shocking by the feminine 
on-lookers of a certain age ; though it is 
not recorded that the handsome married 
women joined in the outcry. 

Alas, my head is full of islands and their 
intoxicating incidents ! 

You, on the other hand, my princess, 
never deign to give me a single thought. 

Well, yes, perhaps one thought on Friday ; 
for the letter which you received that morn- 
ing would have warmed a stone. But why 
should you trouble yourself to think much 
more of one you have so utterly subdued? 
What is the use of revanquishing the van- 
quished ? You have stamped with your 
little foot on my neck, the physical, tangi- 
ble, decisive proof of mastery that not one 
woman in five hundred million gets. Yes, 
and you get it for nothing. Well no, not 


258 


HIS LETTERS 


quite that, but only for the small change of 
love. 

If you don’t tell me, immediately after re- 
ceiving this, that I may see you this after- 
noon or evening, I will do something 
desperate. I will go back from whence I 
came ; I could not do anything more des- 
perate than that. 

If you had for me a hundredth part of the 
mad desire and longing that I have for you, 
you would have flown to me, and we would 
have met somewhere in mid-air. I simply 
shall not begin to breathe till I see your 
handwriting, and know that I am to look 
upon your face to-day. 

Letter One Htindred and Second. 

I revere, I worship you. I have never 
loved you as I do to-night. If anyone had 
told me this morning that within twelve hours 
I should adore you ten times more than 
I did then, I should have laughed at him, 
for it would have seemed impossible. Yet 
it is true. The oftener I see you the more 
ineffable becomes the tenderness with which 
I think of you, and the more fierce and 


HIS LETTERS 


259 


quenchless is my thirst for you. Nor is it 
for one second to earth that my passion for 
you draws me ; it is upward. In my dreams 
it is to the heights you beckon me, and it is 
there that you fall into my arms. Do you 
know, beloved, that at certain moments to- 
day, your face was illuminated like that of 
no mortal. You cannot be an earthly 
woman. Heavens, what a sight entrancing 
your sweet face, when love shines through 
it ! The very greatest of the singers, Dante, 
has imagined it, but never saw it, never saw 
what I have seen at last. Ah, you are the 
ideal sweetheart. Y ou satisfy every thought, 
taste, impulse, inspiration. You act upon 
your lover like some strange chemic heat 
that brings out all his capacities. Oh, you 
are indeed a splendid creature, as well as 
the most delicious little piece of femininity. 
How sweetly womanly you are ! You can- 
not guess how soft your eyes are sometimes ; 
they melt, yes they would melt a stone, and 
God knows I am no stone to you ! And 
your shyness is so fascinating ! 


26 o 


HIS LETTERS 


Letter One Hundred and Third, 

On my way I seized your delicious letter, 
and have been devouring it ever since. Ah, 
if you loved me I could defy fortune, des- 
tiny, God himself to harm me. Does that 
seem blasphemous? Oh, no; it is the rec- 
ognition of his best gift to man. 

I have had some annoyances. There is 
a state of increasing moral tension about 
me ; my enemies have been at work, but 
the sight of your dear handwriting whirled 
all out of consciousness forever. If your 
hand can do that, what cannot your face do ? 

I foresaw that you would not let me see 
you Friday [^in your boudoir. Ah, yes, I 
am beginning to understand you a little, 
only a little. I never could fathom you 
utterly, but I am beginning to learn some 
of your pretty ways — ah, they are pretty ! 

I am fidelity itself and passion inexhaust- 
ible, although at first so prejudiced you 
were it is hard for you to believe it. But 
you will see. Give me a chance to show it. 
My God, how could a man that you have 
been kind to look at any other woman ? 


HIS LETTERS 


261 


I have thought much of our last conver- 
sation. With what touching sincerity and 
infectious poignancy you speak of grief ! 
Ah, dearest, in your words it is not talent, 
it is genius that I find ! How otherwise 
could you so affect me ? 

How I detest those people, the type of 
whom you speak ! I was brought up among 
them. Luckily I reacted violently. It was 
as if hens had hatched a hawk. 

I agreed with what you said about Amer- 
ican reserve. There is no such thing as 
deep emotion which does not find an outlet. 
One might as well talk of lava being hot 
and plentiful when it doesn’t erupt. Yet it 
is strange enough that I have always been 
very reserved before. It is only to you 
that I speak out of my heart. 

Letter One Hundred and Fourth, 

When, in your angry moments, you de- 
clare that I don’t suit you in anything, I re- 
fuse to believe you. What a state of things ! 
What are you going to do with a man who, 
however you revile him, persists in thinking 
you the sweetest woman in the world, dear 


262 


HIS LETTERS 


Helo ? You will have to try some act of 
violence, such as whipping me with your 
slipper, or strangling me with your silk 
stocking, or trampling on me with your 
slender foot ; which shall it be ? I should 
revel in any of those penalties ! 

I was delighted to-day to see and know 
how thoroughly your pictures have been ap- 
preciated abroad ; above all that they have 
been spoken of in such high praise by one who 
is an acknowledged master. Such unprece- 
dented testimony to the merit of your work 
ought to let in a ray of light upon the dark- 
ened intellects that cannot recognize supe- 
rior talent. 

They are touching lines you gave me, 
'‘Thou or I.” They were evidently written 
by a woman, and she is quite right in finally 
acknowledging that the man died first. It 
is a very curious fact — have you not noticed 
it ? — that while of little passions the woman 
is generally the first if not the only victim, 
in great passions it is the man that suffers. 
We know that Beatrice did not value Dante’s 
devotion at the price of a glove, and that 
Laura never gave a thought to Petrarch. 


HIS LETTERS 


263 


It is true, on the other hand, that Vanessa 
died for Swift — one of the most amazing tri- 
umphs of intellect over physical unattractive- 
ness that ever I heard of. What is really 
beautiful in the lines you saved for me is 
the fact that the survivor who writes them, 
and the reader also, is long uncertain which 
of the two lovers is the dead one. 

You say in your sweetness that I am not 
one of the vanquished in life’s battle. 
Everything is relative. Defeat or triumph 
depends upon the aims one started with. 
But oh, I have known you ! I have not been 
vanquished, then ; that was an all-sufficing 
victory. 

Letter One Hundred and Fifth, 

I have had to spend many days and hours 
lately among the frightful cads who haunt 
this place, because I was nearer you and 
could more readily obtain your letters. 
Such considerations have no weight with 
me. I would bear much worse humiliation 
for the sake of a line from you. Yes, I 
could bear anything if I was not right in 
divining that you have had another violent 


264 


HIS LETTERS 


reaction against me. Well, whose fault is 
it? Certainly not yours. A wise man does 
not blame a woman for such impulsive move- 
ments. He puts the blame where it be- 
longs — upon himself. It is his part to put 
an end to such instinctive variations and 
recoils. It is easier to see how to do it 
when I remember how different you were 
before you got back from M. — before you 
saw me and heard me talk. One must be 
blind not to perceive the remedy. I desire 
to be put on probation for six weeks. Dur- 
ing that time I do not wish you to consent 
to see me. If in that time I cannot con- 
vince you that I love you as you wish to be 
loved, I will submit without a murmur to 
a final decree of banishment ; but I want a 
reprieve and further trial. I believe that I 
can make you forget the things that make 
you hate me. You never owned that you 
hated me before you came back from M. 
Why is it now impossible to regain the 
trust and the affection that for a little while 
I dreamed were mine? There are still 
some arrows in my quiver. Who knows ? 
perhaps I might make you like me better 


HIS LETTERS 


265 


than you did in that first April week. At 
all events let me try. I have swallowed all 
the insults that I can digest at present, suf- 
fered all the misery that for the moment I 
can bear, and I can speak of all this more 
reasonably and cogently than I can write. 
You will let me speak to-morrow; but we 
will not walk unless you command it. For 
such an interview as I wish, and which 
means everything to me, you surely could 
let me come to your house. But whatever 
your orders, of course I shall obey them, and 
nothing that you could say or do could pre- 
vent me from being. 

Yours forever, 

Hubert. 

Letter One Httndred and Sixth, 

I read the extract from the letter which 
you sent me with the strangest sensations 
of mingled amusement and delight. But 
you cannot terrify me by showing me how 
redoubtable you are to others. Of course 
you are, but the old soothsayer in France 
was right ; you are too intensely femme not 
to be the slave of the man, the lucky one 


266 


HIS LETTERS 


whom you should really care for. Ah, 
surely, he would be born under a bright 
star, and you would not be in the least 
afraid of his mastery ; one never is when 
one really loves. That is the final cul- 
minating test. Of course you would rebel, 
because it naturally takes time for an em- 
press to realize that she has given herself a 
master at last ; yet really, upon the whole, 
she does not suffer much. There are worse 
things in this vale of tears than to be the 
slave of one who loves you to distraction ; 
and who cannot define the difference be- 
tween slavery and tyranny. . . . 

I told you the deepest wish of my heart 
when I said that I wanted to carry you to 
Constantinople. How have I smiled when 
you have told me that I knew not jealousy ! 
If I do not dwell upon your past it is because 
I am quite sufficiently preoccupied by the 
present and the future. Dearest, never 
make me jealous ! You do not know me if 
you imagine that it will be safely done ; I 
don’t mean safely to you but safely to me. 
I am not vain ; it is only vanity that enables 
men to bear the pangs of real jealousy. 


Ills LETTERS 


267 


You will toss these warnings aside, I dare 
say, but if you do, and truly care for me a 
little, as I must now believe, you may find 
out some day too late that I was very 
earnest. Oh, you will never understand how 
I am racked by that feeling ; but now it is 
enough joy to me to hear you speak and 
touch your ardent hand. Forgive me if I 
have sometimes blasphemed by pretending 
otherwise in the wild and fruitless effort to 
gain more ! 

Au revoiTy it bientdty my morning star! 

Letter One Hundred and Seventh. 

I kissed your letter for the exquisite hand 
that penned it. You bid me tell you more 
about my life ; it is too humdrum, too 
packed with drudgery to interest such an 
one as you. There is not an act, a word, a 
thought which I would not gladly have you 
know. 

Often have I wished that I could give 
you the ring which made the bearer invis- 
ible. When I read your letter I felt wicked, 
almost sacrilegious that I dared to feel any- 
thing but reverence for thee. Ah, forgive 


268 


HIS LETTERS 


me that I love you with such a passionate 
human ardor ; I cannot help it. It is too 
late, I fear, for me to change the nature of 
my passion. Although you have every- 
thing in you with which to elevate a lover, 
you have also, dearest, everything with 
which to bewitch him. For if you are the 
noblest, the fairest, the most radiantly 
gifted of women, you are also the most 
physically lovely. 

Ah, in pity, dearest, love me ! 

Letter One Hundred arid Eighth. 

Ah, yes, dear ; in spite of your tender and 
inspiring words, my life was manqu^e, I 
did not care for pecuniary success. It 
seemed to me that I had sold my birthright 
for a mess of pottage. I felt, as I told you 
that first time, like a gladiator, like a man 
born free, but made captive, and forced to 
use his sinews and his thews for hire. I 
hated life ; I wanted to die. I saw no 
possibility of change to another profession ; 
and all I looked forward to was accumulat- 
ing as quickly as possible a provision for 
those who are dependent upon me, and 


HIS LETTERS 269 

then quieting my heart-burnings in the 
most effectual way. 

And then I saw your painting, and in it 
I saw you, and for the first time realized all 
that love might mean. That oath, ah, it 
was an oath, dearest, which it would have 
been the most shocking blasphemy to take 
about any other woman but you. I had 
used it once about myself, when I swore to 
outgrow selfishness, and to recognize the 
responsibility which I too lightly had as- 
sumed. It was by my mother’s memory 
that I swore to touch your heart ; and it is 
not alone your beauty which I yearn for, it 
is the sweet and noble and lofty soul, the 
genius that radiates through your looks 
and your words. I wanted to marry your 
mind. I cannot tell you with what inde- 
scribable emotions of delight I have seen 
your last picture. Remember, it is the first 
thing of yours that has been exhibited 
since you began to care for me a little. I 
cannot describe to you the elation with 
which I fancied that I could descry some 
traces of an approaching marriage of our 
souls. 


18 


270 


HIS LETTERS 


Good-night, my angel. 

I must have your heart, it must be mine, 
queen of my soul ! 

When shall I look again into those love- 
haunted eyes ? 

Letter One Hundred and Ninth. 

I cannot forget the color of your cheeks 
the last time that I saw you. Why, they 
were beautiful disks of flame, such disks as 
Venus wore when she sprang out of the sea 
at Paphos, to set the world ablaze. 

How many things you have taught me! 
above all a hundred passionate and tender 
yearnings of which I had never dreamed. 
You ought to love me if love ever is re- 
sponsive to ardor in the worshiper. 

Do you know that when I think of and 
sometimes speak to you, I cannot help us- 
ing diminutives, dignified and stately as you 
are at will. I use them, I think, in obe- 
dience to a deep instinct twined around the 
roots of a virile heart, yes, an instinct hun- 
dreds of thousands of years old. For even 
in the cave dwellings you find the bones of 
the men close to the portal, while the re- 


HIS LETTERS 


271 


mains of the women and children lie far 
within. It is clear that all the tenants of 
such caves succumbed to some overwhelm- 
ing assault ; but the men, at least, fell in 
the right place. No, it is impossible for 
the man really in love not to feel a protect- 
ing impulse. 

Vraimenty vous saves il est ddfendu d'itre 
enchanter esse a un tel point. 

How do you manage to live and be so 
sweet ? I marvel that other women have 
not long since poisoned you. 

Do you remember that tryst upon the 
beautiful bridge ? Ah, there is not a mo- 
ment of the day, or of my waking hours at 
night, when I do not remember that ! 

Letter One Hundred and Tenth. 

I send back the book that you lent me. 
Of course I liked it, loved it. How can I 
help liking anything that you like? Never 
was there such perfect sympathy. I under- 
stand you ; I know what you think and 
wish. Oh, dearest, what bliss you give me 
when you tell me that I have made you 
happy. I want to, and I rack my own 


272 


HIS LETTERS 


heart when I am unkind to you. ... I live 
and feel only in you. I haven’t a trace of 
egotism left, unless it be the vanity sud- 
denly awakened in me by the belief that 
you care for me a little. Will you forgive 
that sort of egotism ? How good it was of 
you to write that letter ; you knew I should 
be pining. Yes, I pine. 

I am intensely jealous of everyone that 
saw those little gold-embroidered shoes ; 
and I dislike and distrust the keen-sighted 
person that saw a mystery in my darling’s 
face. Give me the mysteries ; they are 
mine. If there is “radiance ” it belongs to 
me. Ah, I shall have to lock you up. You 
are too bewilderingly handsome to be allowed 
to go about. The Turks are right. I am 
rapidly becoming a Turk. If I could carry 
you off to a villa on the Bosporus, I would 
straightway become a Moslem. I should 
be your master, and you could not escape. 
Would you want to ? 

Last night again I had a dream of 
thee ! Ah, in my dreams I am like one 
under delicious spells. The happy victim 
of some tender witchery, the enamored 


HIS LETTERS 


273 


slave of an impassioned mistress, whose 
harshest injunction is to love . . • and 
love. 

And then, alas ! I wake. 

Letter One Hundred and Eleventh, 

Do we not have our fill of romance, sweet 
Helo ? or did I dream that someone cried 
“ Fire ” when we were together in your 
studio. I would have wrapped my coat 
over your face and bosom, and you 
would have taken my hand, and thus I 
would have conveyed you through the flame. 
I doubt if all the engines in the city could 
put out the flames that your loveliness 
kindles ! Dearest, tell me, is your throat 
better ? It is the strangest thing — I also 
have a sore throat this morning. I never 
was so delighted in my life ; I want to have 
everything that you have. Before God, if 
I knew that you were dying of diphtheria, 
I would upset the earth to get to you, that 
I might drink your breath and rejoin you 
quickly. There is no doubt about it that 
since I knew you I am becoming a convert 
to Islam. And if I believed in the harem. 


2 74 HIS LETTERS 

I should not care for any odalisques. One 
sultana would suffice, provided her name 
was yours. But I would have her guarded 
with drawn swords ; and never should she 
put her face out of the zenana, except in her 
lord’s company. I am afraid you think a 
palace on the Bosporus would be a dismal 
prospect for a belle ! 

" Letter One Hundred and Twelfth. 

My adored one, I have your telegram 
Then you did not like one of my letters ? 
Ah me, and I was so foolishly happy. No 
sooner had I written and dispatched that 
poor little missive than I desired to live 
over again the hours that I passed with you. 
First I drove up the river and got some 
dinner, or pretended to, sitting at the same 
table, and in the very chair where she had 
sat. Then I came home, threw myself on 
the sofa, in my study, determined to sleep 
or dream there. It is a strange fancy, but 
it is a fact that I fell into a deep, refreshing 
slumber, an amazing contrast to the broken 
and feverish hours of the preceding night. 
But alas, perhaps she doesn’t want me to 


HIS LETTERS 


275 


sleep ; perhaps she doesn’t want me to feel 
happy. 

Letter One Hmidred and Thirteenth. 

What an extraordinary thing is love ! I 
perceive that I never knew anything about 
it until you flashed upon me, and I fell 
forthwith to worshiping. I really used to 
be fool enough to suppose that love was all 
fun. Heavens ! there is very little fun in it. 
There is some rapture and a great deal of 
torment. And the strangest thing of all is 
that even the torments your beloved causes 
you seem ecstasies compared with any 
pleasures another could give. 

Ah, do you know that you put a wonder- 
ful vitality and delicious meaning into even 
the commonplace phrases which I used to 
loathe. It is a copybook aphorism that 
love is a madness. How often have I 
smiled at that ! Why — it is true. I am 
quite mad. I know that I have not been 
sane an hour since you came back ; and 
even before that I had shown many signs of 
aberration. On the night of your depar- 
ture, for example, it would have needed but 


276 


HIS LETTERS 


little more to upset my reason. And yet 
the sweet and splendid creature that has so 
conquered, demented, absorbed me that I 
only breathe at her good pleasure, has 
sometimes bidden me to pause and think.” 
Why, would she have my heart stop beat- 
ing ? While it beats at all it will beat for 
her. And thinking ? — What then does she 
call this incessant preoccupation of my 
brain ? When I cease, dearest, to think of 
you, be sure that I am dead. 

Then there is another conventional phrase 
which I used to hear with amused incredu- 
lity. “ He actually adores the ground she 
walks upon.” Well — this too is true. Did 
I not stoop and kiss your footprints on the 
sand ? 

Letter One Hundred and Fourteenth. 

To-night I had been inveigled into joining 
a party to the play. But when the evening 
came, having received no letter from you, I 
was actually ill. It is incredible what power 
the mind has on the body. So I got out 
of my engagement as best I could, and oh, 
how thankful I was that I had not gone ! 


HIS LETTERS 


277 


For your dear, dear letter came at last. I 
have kissed every page. Ah, you make me 
good as well as happy ; you make me be- 
lieve in God. How else can I account for 
the existence of such a beautiful and noble 
being? Thank you for telling me that you 
don’t flirt. I will try to believe you, since 
you cannot guess what that belief will mean 
to me. As for me, I don’t know that any 
other woman is existing. If I had to see and 
be civil to other women, they would be repul- 
sive, loathsome to me. I pity other men 
who imagine that there are any real women 
in the world except one. Of course I am 
your slave ; you have put a ribbon around 
my neck. You didn’t need a chain ; of 
course I would obey your slightest wish. 

Do you know, I have heard your eyes 
called cruel, but to me they seem full of 
tenderness. Sometimes I feel that I could 
be satisfied with lying forever at your slen- 
der feet, and riveting my eyes upon the 
v/itchery of your face ; and again, I feel that 
nothing will content me but to seize and 
crush you and make you my own. So I 
really cannot tell whether my passion for 


278 


HIS LETTERS 


you has more of gentleness or of fierceness 
in it. 

Last Letter — One Hundred and Fifteenth, 

When I found nothing to-day, I rushed 
over to a quiet nook, and read over for the 
hundredth time the few of my darling’s 
letters — there are five of them — which I still 
retain ; especially the precious one which 
you penned just before your departure. I 
never burn one of your letters without feel- 
ing as if I had committed a murder, as if I 
had killed something whose beauty and 
nobility should have been guaranties of im- 
mortality. What delicious things you say 
to me ! What a wonderful thing is passion 
when it is refined, inflamed, and glorified by 
the soul of a genius and the delicacy of a 
great lady. . . . 

In one of your letters you say that there 
is a side of your character that I have never 
seen — an irritable side. I never shall see it, 
dearest ; it is not natural to you. In an at- 
mosphere of instant comprehension, perfect 
sympathy, and devoted love what could 
chafe or exasperate ? I know well what 


HIS LETTERS 


279 


are the conditions that clog and cramp and 
stifle a sensitive and aspiring nature. It 
would be ridiculous to compare myself to 
thee from such a point of view, but even 
I, who used to be the most even-tempered 
of men, have of late rebelled against non- 
comprehension, and become impatient. 
But I have shown no traces of such a 
change to you, sweet one, have I ? How 
could I when you make me so happy and 
so proud ? For your words and your be- 
witching presence fill me with a happiness 
that I have never dreamed before. 

My precious dear, I wonder whether any 
man has loved a woman precisely as I love 
you. My love is the strangest combination 
of passion, sympathy, admiration, and re- 
spect. I cannot separate the elements even 
in imagination, they are so intimately 
blended, chemically fused. What potion 
hast thou given me, oh, thou daughter of the 
gods ? Why is it that I know not whether 
to kneel to you in worship, or to seize you in 
my arms and learn whether my divinity is 
also a loving woman? You have brought 
sunshine into my life. Nature has stamped 


28 o 


HIS LETTERS 


Upon you all her enthralling graces. Never 
shall I forget my feelings, the other after- 
noon, when, after stopping your carriage, I 
turned sharply, and saw her — my goddess — 
advancing toward me, tripping as Aurora 
tripped — no, floating, skimming like a splen- 
did sailing-ship under full canvas, on an en- 
amored gale. My heavens, what a sight was 
that ! I think that in my death hour that 
sight will come to my fast closing eyes, and 
they that watch beside my pillow will see a 
smile upon' my lips ; for I shall see you, dar- 
ling, coming to meet me — to meet me — 
somewhere — on the further side of Styx. 


THE END. 


"AN EPIC OF THE WEST” 


The Girl at the Halfway House. 

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In response to the many inquiries which have shown a general 
desire for an illustrated edition of “ David Harum,” the Messrs. 
Appleton have fortunately been able to arrange with the distin- 
guished artist, Mr. B. West Clinedinst, N. A., who has been 
peculiarly interested in the book, and has accepted the commission 
with an enthusiasm and perfect appreciation which have produced 
the happiest and most sympathetic results. Mr. Clinedinst’ s study 
of the character and his rendering of types show a comprehension 
of Mr. Westcott’ s creations and a quick sense of humor which 
would have delighted the lamented author. 

Also, Edition dc Luxe of the above, printed in tints, 
with copperplate photogravures, large paper, uncut, 8vo, ^lo.oo. 

The “Christmas Story” from David 
Harum. 

Crane Edition. Illustrated with pictures of Wil- 
liam H. Crane in character, and stage photographs. 
Cloth, 75 cents. Pocket-book Edition, $ 1 , 00 . 

No other episode in Mr. Westcott’ s famous book presents the 
tenderness and quaintness and full quality of David Harum’ s 
character with the richness and pathos of the story which tells 
how he paid the “int’rist” upon the “cap’tal” invested by 
Billy P. Fortunately, this story lends itself readily to separate 
publication, and it forms an American ‘^Christmas Carol” 
which stands by itself. 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 










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